Phantasmagoria
by Meepyonnee
Summary: It is easy to lose yourself when you don't know if what you see is real . . . or not. As a new chapter of Mai's life unfolds – between hunting ghosts and chasing shadows of the past – she struggles to live between two realities. -:- Canon-divergence AU. (Rewrite of 'The Ghosts of Repentance Past')
1. Extreme Extrication

_A/N: Welcome to my not-really-new story! As stated above, this is a rewrite of_ 'The Ghosts of Repentance Past' _, my first multi-chap story. Although... even if I say it's a_ rewrite _, that doesn't mean this story and its predecessor are mirror images. I've tweaked a few things, made this and that be_ another _this and that. Most events from Repentance will not be repeated the same way. I'd rather you think of this as an entirely new story, really, because I changed_ too _many details. Though yeah, the premise is still the same._

 _Basically, Repentance was my own take on Ghost Hunt. I used the same characters and_ _the same time frame_ _, though not the same plot, themes and cases. These will also be applied to Phantasmagoria, but unlike in Repentance, I've planted more twists and bombs here ;)_

 _Why the new title, you ask? Necessary. Just look at the summary~_

 _Rated T for some instances of strong language and mentions of delicate themes (i.e. suicide, death). And of course, because there'll be ghosts, duh._

 _My explanation stops here. Finally, right? But yeah, I might give something away if I continue *v* If you have any questions, please feel free to comment below or PM me :D_

* * *

 **PHANTASMAGORIA**

 _1: Extreme Extrication  
_

.

White prickled at Mai's closed eyes, wanting nothing more than to catch a glimpse of them, but their owner refused to oblige. She squeezed her eyes shut even tighter and hurriedly swung an arm over them to keep the persistent light away.

It did not work, to her dismay. White was replaced by Red and Orange and Stars and Pain. Her eyes stung from the force of her arm, so she moved the limb away. But the White was there again, waiting. Groggy and irritated, she contemplated giving up to the persistent light, but her eyes were stubborn. No waking up yet.

More minutes than she'd cared to count had passed before the White bothered her again. It was unrelenting this time, brighter, more aggressive, as if it was attempting to blind her through closed lids.

Silently admitting defeat, she opened her eyes.

And promptly regretted it soon afterward.

Everything was too bright, too clean, too _much_. It was already her two hundred and ninety-seventh morning here, yet despite her aversion to the place, still, she did not leave. 'Til now, she wasn't used to . . . she couldn't —

"Oh, good you're awake," a brash tone said, interrupting her thoughts. The voice was undoubtedly familiar, one of her only comforts in this maddening place. "Mai, get up, I have something to show you."

She turned her head towards her visitor, wordlessly asking her to continue. With red hair aptly framing her fiery expression, Ayako Matsuzaki simply raised both her eyebrows in response, as if repeating her command. _Get_ _ **up**_.

"Aya — Dr. Matsuzaki, I really think it's too early in the morning for —"

"No, no, it's the perfect time," the woman interrupted. Still with raised eyebrows, she pointed her gaze to the space above the window, where a clock ticked dutifully. Three quarters past six, it said. "You have more than enough time to get ready."

". . . For what?" Mai asked, weary of the woman's intentions. She was sure this was another one of her schemes to kick her out of the hospital.

"For school!" Ayako showed her what she had been hiding behind her back. It was a school uniform.

 _I knew it._

-:-:-:-:-

Mai bade the doctor goodbye for the seventh time, brushing off persistent offers of lunch money and a drive to school. She truly appreciated Ayako's concern, but the fact that the woman forced her to go out made the sentiments traitorous in her eyes. She had been perfectly fine in that room, had no need to go anywhere else when she had all she wanted right there. She didn't want to go out, especially not to school; she hadn't gone there for several months now and she had no plans of going back.

But apparently, if she didn't want to be permanently kicked out of the hospital, she had to go back and attend classes like a good, normal kid. Online classes didn't count anymore, said Ayako.

She glanced at the hand-drawn map Ayako gave her. It was a fair distance from the hospital to her high school; she estimated ten minutes by bus, thirty by feet. She chose to walk. After months and months of being cooped up in one single place, she grudgingly admitted it was nice to be out for once. Winter had gone and passed quietly. All the snow had finally melted away and the trees had started to bloom. The fresh air tickled her skin, and she inhaled . . . exhaled. Absent was the smell of death.

Present was the sight.

 _Never mind that,_ Mai told herself hastily, then chanted under her breath a mantra taught by another girl who was just like her. The girl told her to say it three times whenever she felt that _they_ were entering her peripheral. Although the advice rarely ever worked, she practiced it nonetheless; it helped her steady her heartbeat.

Another totem was a bracelet imbued with charms given to her by Ayako. And, like the chant, even though it often did not work to shield her . . . _vision_ , she clung onto it nonetheless. Prayers and spells had been poured into the accessory, prayers and spells that Ayako worked hard to perfect. She believed in them and that alone should be enough to erase her cowardice.

She inhaled once again and revelled at the absence of the smell of death and disinfectant in the air. Ignoring the shifting figures at the edge of her vision, she stepped forward and continued her walk. She distracted herself by enumerating the advanced subjects she took online, wondering if she could be allowed to skip some classes. Or maybe she should just ditch.

A gust of wind propelled a wondrous amount of petals toward her, prompting her to look up from the ground so she could admire the scenery. The trees around her danced gracefully, swaying as if hearing a waltz. Their branches and leaves sang along, tranquil humming permeating the air.

Beneath the peaceful hub was a sight that ended the harmony for Mai, confusion plaguing her instead. In front of her was a boy — a boy who she undoubtedly knew she'd met in the past, but couldn't remember when and how. She was certain however that it was _wrong_ to meet him again _this way_.

 _Not like this . . . I don't ever want to meet him again if it means seeing him as a ghost of the past . . ._

As her vision blurs and distorts, the world before her eyes turns into a reality of indescribable colors. Then the landscape before her shifts, yet stays the same. The song of the early morning disappears, mutes for a split second, and comes back again. The boy beneath serenity, who has — just a second ago — been running frantically toward her, has vanished. Then he returns . . . to the very spot where she has first seen him. Instead of alarm dominating his features, he dons a mask of muted calm.

And then, she is running.

She is going to be late for Mr. Kinoshita's math test! The number one rule to Kinoshita's Algebra 101 is never be late, _or else_. Unless life or death is the matter, he won't take any excuses, and most definitely not _'Sorry sir, I woke up late because Mom forgot to wake me up before she left for work'._

Cursing her fate, she closes her eyes and wills with all her heart for her legs to carry her faster to school. Limbs scream in protest, but heed her request nevertheless. She's going to make it. She won't be late.

With the wind biting at her as she runs, she opens her eyes just to make sure. Yup, right there. She can see the school just a few meters away—! _Where did it go?!_

"Oof!" she grunts as she slams face first into a wall—or _is_ it a wall? Walls aren't supposed to bend to the whims of gravity just because a weak little teenage girl has crashed into it, right? And they aren't supposed to fall on top of her like this!

She yelps as she falls back along with the wall—which, apparently, is _not_ a wall after all. She realizes, just as her calves felt a marble base behind her, that what she has slammed into _and_ is now falling with into a fountain, is a boy around her age. A boy who is one head taller than her, has awkward, gangly limbs, and a face sporting an expression that evidently shows: _'What the hell?'_ She has ran into a boy. Not a wall.

 _Splash!_ says the murky water when they meet it. Two seconds later, they both emerge—filthy and sodden. As she tries to stand up, nose inflamed, a sudden fit of coughs possesses her. The boy on the other hand stays down on hands and knees, seeming to be searching for something underneath the water.

She steps out of the fountain first, apologies already forming on the tip of her tongue, but then she remembers what the contents of her bag are. She removes its straps from her shoulders, pausing to pull the zipper, and holds the soggy container upside down. Her things fall to the ground and alarm flows through her despite knowing what she's going to see. All her _expensive_ textbooks are dead.

Crap. Her mom is going to _murder_ her.

A defeated sigh accompanies her own nervous whimper, prompting her to remember that she isn't the only victim here. She looks up from the pathetic pile of her ruined school supplies to the boy behind her. He towers over her, standing tall and poised and, even though he's obviously soaking, it looks as if he is not at all ruffled by their collision. He stands dignified even in his marred clothes: a close-fitted Prussian blue sweater and perfectly cut jeans.

A sodden book is likewise in his clenched hands, hardbound, with no title on its cover; it must have been what he was searching for. He stares at it with a blank gaze, looking as if he wants to pierce a hole into it using only his mind.

And finally, after unbearable moments of creeping apprehension on her part and begrudged resignation on his, he speaks. "Here, I don't need this anymore," he says as he drops his book into her hands and walks away. Then as a farewell—of sorts—he mutters, "I only got that from the publishing house last week."

"I'm really sorry!" she calls after him, her apology sincere. A sense of camaraderie fills her chest, realizing they both suffer the same misery. Never mind the fact that she's the cause of both their books' demise.

"By the way," he adds as he continues walking away without a pause, ignoring her apology. "Do you go to that school?" He points to the buildings ahead.

". . . Yes? "

"The bell rang a couple of minutes ago. You're late."

"I'm late?!"

 _I'm late I'm late I'm late_

"I'm late! Mr. Kinoshita's going to kill me for being late for his math test! Oh no oh crap oh my god he's going to kill me he's going to fail me in that class he's—"

" _Mai._ "

A clear voice, calm but resolute, interrupted Mai's growing panic. A pair of hands helped settle her, firmly grasping both her shoulders to keep her grounded. She glanced up and met brown eyes that were anxious and relieved and sad and happy. The turbulent of emotions in those eyes were ever so familiar, both comforting and maddening.

"Ayako, why are you here? You're ditching med school again, aren't you," she said, disproving. She looked around and found that a) everything was spinning and she could feel barf coming up, and b) she was in an unfamiliar room. ". . . Where am I?"

"You're in school. Remember? It's your first day of high school today." Ayako sighed as she brushed away Mai's forelocks to rest a palm on her brow. When she deemed the girl's temperature normal, she reached for her bag and took out a stethoscope. Donning the earpieces, she pressed the diaphragm to Mai's chest and told her to breathe deeply. "Your lungs seem to be fine."

"My lungs have _always_ been fine, Dr. Matsuzaki."

"Stop being formal, I was only joking when I told you to call me that," Ayako blushed, flicking Mai's nose with more force than necessary. "And no, your lungs haven't _always_ been fine. Need I remind you, you were born with a horrible lung disease and— _need I remind you—_ even though your disease is in remission, there's still the possibility of it coming back."

"I know, I know, Auntie informs me every time we meet," she said, smiling tiredly. Ayako's mother was her doctor — or _had been_ , as the girl liked to tell herself often, since she'd already been healed of her illness(es). "I'll try to be more careful. My lungs are fine. See?" She inhaled a huge breath through her nose and released it gradually through her mouth, the end transforming into a slight whistle when she brought her lips closer.

Ayako ruffled Mai's hair. "If you say so. But still." The woman looked straight into her eyes. "The boy who brought you here looked pretty rattled. Said you just fainted all of a sudden."

"But I didn't—! . . . I'm sorry for worrying you."

"I know."

Although it had been common for her as a child to faint at the most random times because of her weak lungs, it'd been a while—eight years, in fact—since she last _'collapsed'._ She hadn't realized at first, but apparently she used to faint whenever she saw _them_ when she was younger _._ . . . Though, she didn't understand. She'd already found a way to control these episodes. Yes she still saw them, but she never lost her grip on consciousness, not anymore.

"Anyway," Ayako said after minutes of comfortable silence. "You have classes, or have you forgotten?" The woman smirked, obviously pleased with herself. She pulled Mai up from the cot and handed her schoolbag.

"Yes, yes, I remember well. _You're_ the one who forced me to come," Mai replied, rolling her eyes. With a push from Ayako, she strode out the room and trudged through the hallway aimlessly. She didn't know where she was supposed to go. It was her first time inside the school; she had been allowed to take the exam at the hospital and Ayako took care of the enrollment here. "Why are you here anyway? Decided to work as a school doctor or something?"

"Or _something_." Ayako snickered. She pulled Mai's elbow and steered her toward the other direction.

"No way."

"Yes. _Way_."

"Here? Seriously? Is this why you made me attend classes again, so you can spy on me?"

"Psh, not everything's about you, Mai."

"Don't blame me for thinking that you're acting suspicious." She narrowed her eyes.

"It was a coincidence, a coincidence," the redhead sang, her eyes bright with mischief. "It just so _happened_ that when I submitted your documents, I overheard your principal talking about it on his phone."

"Oh, so now you're an eavesdropper on top of being a stalker. Not a bad addition," Mai teased, ducking away when the doctor started to lift an arm to hit her shoulder. "Your dad's gonna be livid when he hears you took another offer."

"So?" An unladylike snort came from Ayako, a sound she otherwise wouldn't have made if she hadn't been alone with Mai. "It's not like I'm abandoning my _real_ job in favor of my _side_ job."

"But what about your internship?"

"I took a break." Ayako laughed. "My family owns the hospital after all, and the internship is only a formality anyway."

"Does Auntie approve?"

"Mom encourages even my craziest ideas."

"So I guess this counts? I still can't believe your parents allow you to continue practicing—" Mai rolled her eyes. "— _priestesshood._ "

"I do what I want." Ayako stuck out her tongue. Very mature.

"But what about the incident last time . . ." She furrowed her brows in concern. "You might get hurt again."

"Don't worry, Mai, I'll be fine," Ayako reassured, trying not to twitch at the mention of her blunder before. "And the principal hired some other guys, too. Even though I _did_ say I'll be able to take care of it on my own."

"That's probably for the best."

"Well now, we've reached your destination," the doctor informed, pausing in front of a wooden sliding door. Written on the sign above was '1-C'. "Good luck on your first day as a high school student. Don't destroy anything, okay? Wait for me at the gate later, we'll go home together," she said, pinching Mai's nose. She waited for the girl to go in before she headed elsewhere, to where she was meeting the principal.

-:-:-:-:-

The curious smell of weathered books and chalk dust was the first thing Mai noticed as she entered. Second were the piercing stares.

The teacher had been cut off midsentence when the door opened, and for this reason his eyes trailed to the entrance near the back of the classroom. There stood a petite girl around the age of fifteen, with hair—that had almost the same brown shade of her eyes—chopped near the base of her ear.

"You must be the new student," the teacher surmised aloud, partly to inform the rest of the class but mostly to verify the statement. All he knew about the new student was that she was a she and she was a brunette. And, that she was giving him extra paperwork for enrolling three weeks after the official start of the school year.

Mai nodded vaguely and continued to the nearest seat she could find, which was almost next to the door she had just entered from. She took off her backpack, for a split second confused why it wasn't wet but then she _remembered_ , and pulled out two of three of her bag's contents: one notebook and one mechanical pencil.

Looking up from her desk, she saw what she had been avoiding to meet—a sea of eyes staring at her. Some were new and inquisitive, others were familiar and weary. One, two . . . Four people here were from her old middle school.

The teacher cleared his throat. "Please introduce yourself first, uh . . ." He opened a drawer and shuffled his papers, quietly cursing himself for not remembering the girl's name. When at last he found her file, he said, "Ms. Taniyama."

Complying—but not really—Mai stood up and introduced herself, not walking up to the front of the room as the teacher would have liked. "Good morning. My name is Mai Taniyama. _Yoroshiku._ " Then she bowed slightly, sat back down and opened her notebook.

"Hey," a friendly voice from her left whispered just as the teacher continued his drone about the Edo period. "My name's Keiko Takahashi, nice to meet you."

Mai managed a weak smile in return.

Two more periods came to pass, the class buzzing throughout the short breaks in between. Except for the four who were from her old school, everyone came to meet the mysterious new student. Names and greetings were exchanged, and after which they commenced their inquisition; although, they quickly found that the new student wasn't much of a conversationalist.

So then, they snuck off to the next best source of information: one of the new student's old classmates, who _loved_ attention. He seized the chance to be in the spotlight and wove a magnificent tale to appease his eager listeners.

By the time the lunch bell rang, all the students of class 1-C now knew who Mai Taniyama was and why she had enrolled three weeks late.

By the time the lunch bell rang, all the students of class 1-C now lost their curiosity for Mai Taniyama, instead feeling only either sympathy or indifference towards her.

-:-:-:-:-

The second to the last class Mai had for this day was Physical Education—the class she hated the most, doubly now because it was a joint class with another first year section. Thankfully, she had the right to refuse participation; it was part of the compromise she had with Ayako. She promised not to skip any of her other classes and the doctor gave her a medical slip to allow her non-participation in that class.

"Mai!"

Sitting on the bench, she looked up from her mindless scrawls and saw Michiru Inoue running toward her from across the indoor gym, hands flailing as she excitedly waved hello. Michiru was another of her old classmates. Like all the people from that school, she knew Mai didn't have a father, that he died when Mai had still been young. She knew that Mai's mother died as well, which had happened during the summer of her last year in middle school. And, she knew Mai tried to kill herself soon after. However, unlike all the other people from that school, Michiru was the only one who hadn't glimpsed Mai through eyes hazed by pity or glazed by gossip. Michiru had been there to be Mai's _friend_.

"I'm _so_ glad to see you! How have you been, Mai? It's been so long since I last saw you," Michiru said, pulling her up from her seat and sweeping her into a crushing embrace. "I tried calling you at your house but you never picked up."

"I'm glad to see you, too," she replied, disentangling herself from the other girl. "I'm sorry for missing your calls, I've been with my aunt this whole time," she explained simply, throwing in a smile for good measure.

"Ooh, that must have been fun! You mentioned before that your aunt had a daughter, right? Did you get along?"

"Sort of," she laughed. "We fought a lot, though it wasn't about anything serious. What about you? How was your summer?"

Michiru groaned. "I visited my grandparents and, I love them really, but teaching them how to use a computer was _frustrating_."

They chatted a bit more about their summers, with Mai skimming over the barest she could tell Michiru without painting the entire picture, before Michiru was called back for a class activity. She had told her friend about the enormous house she'd been living in for the past few months and the lovely helpers her aunt had employed, about the beautiful garden she often visited, and about the strict but tender Mrs. Katsumi Matsuzaki.

Although in reality, she had been talking about the hospital, the nurses, and the park beside the building. Mrs. Matsuzaki— _Dr._ Matsuzaki—had only been doing her job by being strict about Mai's health.

Watching her classmates as they were doing their stretching exercise, she sighed and slouched back on her seat. It was always hard to not-lie to Michiru.

It wasn't long until she grew bored of watching her peers run around a small track again and again. In fact, she lasted only ten minutes. Thinking about the book she had in her bag, she went up to the teacher in charge and told her that she wanted to go to the nurse's office. The teacher approved without question.

With her notebook and mechanical pencil gripped firmly in one hand, she strode forward— _slowly_ , acting as if she was sick—and headed towards the opposite direction of where she was supposed to go. If the teacher noticed and tried to reprimand her, she could always just say she hadn't known where the clinic was. When no one yelled at her after she took her tenth step, she continued on her traverse to her classroom, quietly debating with herself whether she should read her book or sleep.

An impossible sight stopped her dead in her tracks.

It was the boy, the one she saw on her way to school.

He was exactly as he had been this morning. Tall and domineering in his stance, he carried himself surely and confidently. A mop of neatly cropped black hair framed dark indigo eyes that spoke of knowledge and curiosity, the hints of despondency hidden from plain sight. One difference was his clothes; instead of a casual blue sweater and faded jeans, he wore black from head to toe.

He was with another boy—a foreigner, clearly, with blonde hair and bright cerulean eyes. Although it was too far for Mai to hear, it seemed as if they were in a deep discussion; the dark haired boy's lips moved rapidly as he spoke while the foreigner nodded every so often, his brows knotted in concentration.

The sight was surreal. Mai couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Wasn't the boy she met this morning supposed to be . . . But clearly someone was talking to him. Unless the foreigner, too, was . . .

The two young men started to walk away, and Mai followed, compelled by an incomprehensible force. When they disappeared out of her line of vision as they rounded a corner, she broke into a run to catch up, hoping desperately that they were still there.

Just as she was about to round the same corner, she heard their voices. With her back against the wall, she strained her ears. Quickly thereafter, she found that they were speaking in a language which was not her native tongue. She understood only a few words. It was in times like this that she regretted having English as her second most-hated subject.

" _. . . Mr. Brown . . . trust . . . please don't . . ."_

" _I . . . Mr. Da—Shibuya . . . promise . . ."_

She leaned into their conversation, grasping at any more words she could recognize, all the while berating herself for even hiding. What was the point? They wouldn't notice her anyway; they were in another realm. They were dead.

-:-:-:-:-

* * *

 _A/N: Soooo, how was it? You're confused? Well, of course you are ;)_

 _Huge-ass thanks to_ _ **archangelBBQ**_ _for being the greatest, patientest, amazingest sempai eeeeeevuuurr! For fixing my loopy phrasing and for supporting my outrageous idea of having this rewrite, maraming salamat! You are ze_ _awesomest ~~_ _If you guys haven't yet—which I totally doubt though—go read her stories too!11!_

 _Thank you to_ _ **Xymena Falling**_ _as well for beta reading, too!_


	2. Blur

_A/N: Yup. Phantablah's still alive, believe it or not. It_ _'s been, um, not an_ entire _year though! Just... eleven months. So much had happened in R.L. since I posted the first chapter, but not a day went by that I didn_ _'_ _t think about this story. (Cheesy, but true.) I promise I_ _'ll stick to a schedule this time. One chapter every two weeks._

 _Thanks soooo much to_ Xymena Falling _and_ archangelBBQ _for their invaluable input~_

* * *

 **PHANTASMAGORIA**

 _2: Blur_

.

"Heya, Taniyama, is that you?" A cheery voice asked her suddenly, making her jump in surprise. She pushed herself away from the wall and turned away from the two spirits, who continued their chat as they walked towards a building across the track field.

"Yasuhara-senpai, what a surprise," she replied calmly, though her rigid posture betrayed otherwise. "I didn't know you were a student here too." Oh but she did. It was only natural. After all, she used to stalk him back in middle school, having a huge crush on the charismatic upperclassman before. It had been a long time since she saw him though. The last time was during his graduation more than a year ago.

Glancing far away, he craned his neck and took a peek at the corridor behind her. "What were you looking at?"

He had been at the second floor of this building when he had first caught sight of her exiting the indoor court. He'd decided to come meet her, enthralled that his favorite _kouhai_ was once again his schoolmate. After descending a flight of stairs and sauntering through a hallway, he met her face-to-face at last. It was hard, though, to catch her attention because her unrelenting gaze was absolutely focused at something behind the corner. To say he was curious was an understatement.

"Oh, nothing, nothing." She fidgeted. "I'm . . . on my way to the clinic right now. Do you mind giving me directions? I don't know where it is."

"I'll walk you there," he said, flashing his usual wide grin. This alone told Mai that he never changed one bit, and that made her relieved. "So," he started, motioning for her to follow him as he walked. "Me too, I didn't know you were a student here. I'm sure I would have noticed you during the first week, at least."

"That's because it's my first day today," she explained. "I had to deal with some things first, so . . ." She bit her lip. "Surely, you've . . ."

"Yes, I've heard."

At that, their conversation screeched to a halt, bringing forth a silence that was stranger than strange to associate with Osamu Yasuhara. He was always such a chatterbox. Odder still was the lack of condolences. She was so used to people apologizing to her for no reason at all, even though knew they weren't at fault. The change was refreshing, even more so because she wouldn't bear it if Yasuhara would say 'sorry' to her.

They reached the clinic, and just as she was turning the knob, he cleared his throat and asked, "Have you signed up for any clubs yet?"

"No," she answered, confused as to why he had asked. "I don't think I will."

"You know, we could use a couple extra hands at the student council, and I know you're more than qualified."

"Let me guess, you're president again." It was more of a statement than a question. "You never give yourself a break, huh. And why now? I was practically begging you to let me be your assistant before, but you never accepted," she chuckled wistfully.

"Sudden change of mind," he laughed along with her. "I've been known to be quite an eccentric guy."

"That you are." She opened the door to the clinic. "I'll have to decline for now. Someone's picking me up later so I can't stay after school."

"You're talking about Dr. Matsuzaki, right? I saw her with the others this morning."

"The others? How do you know Ayako anyway?"

"I, ah . . . visited you at the hospital before, though you were asleep back then. I met her there." He shrugged, scratching the back of his neck. "Right now, she's with the other people working on the principal's request."

"Oh." It's the 'or something' Ayako told her about before.

"Didn't you know about it?" Just as Mai was about to answer, Yasuhara hurriedly suggested, "If you want I could take you where they are later since you don't know the area that well yet so you might get lost and . . ."

"Sure, Yasuhara-senpai. Thanks," she said and gave him a slight wave goodbye as she slid the door open. "I'll see you later."

When the door closed behind Mai, Yasuhara rolled his eyes at himself. "Smooth," he muttered under his breath, smacking the middle of his forehead with an open palm.

Ms. Sato, the school nurse, was starting to get annoyed with her, she surmised. It was her fourth time today visiting the clinic. She went there the first time with Ayako, for the doctor to give a brief rundown for 'future reference'. Ayako gave Mai a very flowery introduction.

The second time was because she had to check her blood pressure. She must do this every day, as per ordered. Ms. Sato was very accommodating. Though some could say she was only sympathizing. She also had a habit of asking Very Important Questions, like _how old are you sweetie_ and _what do your parents do_ and _where do you live_ and _how big is your house_.

On the third visit, Mai came with a plastic bag from the cafeteria full of chocolate bars, sandwiches and a glass bottle of raspberry juice. She couldn't open the bottle.

This fourth time, well . . . she didn't mean to come here, really. She planned on going back to her classroom to read the book she had brought with her. Feeling the nurse's slightly narrowed eyes pointed at her, she smiled as angelically as she could—which was only half-passable, to be honest—said hello to Ms. Sato and turned around. Before stepping out of the room, she peeked out the corridors to see if Yasuhara was still there. He wasn't anymore, so she set course for room 1-C, but of course . . . she got lost. All the hallways looked the same.

At last she found her classroom after several games of eenie-meanie. She entered the classroom as quietly as she could, though it was enough to interrupt the history teacher's passionate ramblings about the youth's prejudice against Natto. He let out a deep sigh and motioned for her to hurry up and get to her seat, then continued his preaching. But just as she leaned back into the chair, the last bell rung, shrill and demanding.

The teacher let out another sigh, though it was not as aggravated this time, hinting at his own relief to end the day. He dismissed his students, his words only passing through each student's first ear and out the other. As soon as they heard the bell, they had already gotten up and had immediately gone to their respective group of friends.

She could feel several pairs of eyes grating on her back as she counted and recounted the contents of her bag and her skirt pocket—one book, one notebook, one pencil and one wallet. It was absurd, she knew, that her classmates would still keep such unrelenting attention on her. It shouldn't be that strange for someone to enroll late to school. Perhaps rumors have already spread about her, but still they shouldn't be staring so hard.

Although . . . maybe the gazes directed at her weren't from her classmates.

She screwed her eyes shut, imagining invisible threads sewing her eyelids permanently closed. Lacing her fingers together atop her lap, she opened her mouth to chant a prayer. Despite what her psychologist told her innumerable times, _they_ were real and _they_ wouldn't leave her alone.

"For thine protection, I now pray,  
Let all the evils turn away.  
Protect me all night and all day,

And keep misfortune well at bay."

She said it three times, holding onto the charmed bracelet Ayako had gotten for her from a Shinto temple. But no matter how sincerely she spoke each word, the pressure heavier than Atlas' curse did not lift—it only grew worse. Gripping the bracelet tighter, she opened her eyes a millimeter per second. Slowly, her vision adjusted to the light and to the scene before her.

No one is in the room. The upbeat tune of a pop song pierces her eardrums, her phone vibrating inside her pocket. She pulls out all the recently dried textbooks from under her desk, checking them one by one if the green hardbound book is amongst them. She could swear she has searched her entire room the other day, turning the entire place upside down, so she must have left it here at school.

But after staring a hole at each of the books before her, even forcing them to transform into the one she needs, she gives up and slouches into her seat. None of them are green and none of them are hardbound. Sighing in defeat, she decides to check again later. It's probably at home in the kitchen. Maybe under the table or inside the fridge.

"Yeah, right," she mutters to herself.

Her phone vibrates again, but this time two short beeps accompany it instead of a pop song. Reaching down to her pocket and pulling the device out, she cringes before turning on the screen. She already knows what the message says.

 _Tutor Shibuya: You're late._

Banging her head multiple times on her desk's hard surface, she stifles her groans. She inhales and exhales three times before sending her reply.

 _I'm almost there! I just went to grab us some snacks. I'll be there in a minute._

Her phone beeps again not even five seconds after her message has gotten through.

 _Tutor Shibuya: Liar._

She arranges her things as fast as she can, knowing that fellow who takes everything literally has already started counting to sixty. She scans the titles on her books and quickly shoves what she doesn't need into her desk, grabbing her English Literature textbook and putting it inside her bag. She counts her pens and pencils and erasers—seven—before zipping up her pencil case, shoving that into her bag as well, along with her phone.

She has a habit of counting all the contents of her bag before leaving any place, regardless whether she just put all the stuff in there a second ago.

So she counted again—one wallet, one pencil, one notebook, and one green hardbound book. She nodded to herself, satisfied that she still had everything she had brought with her.

Noticing the long shadows cast across the room, she smacked a palm hard on her forehead and hurriedly got up. She directed her gaze at the window and was met by the setting sun. Its colors tainted everything with different shades of pink and orange—except for one black form by the front gate. The eerie shadow had the shape of a human, as tall as an adolescent, which stood perfectly still. She could feel that it was waiting for someone.

Waiting for _her._

Two raps on wood from behind her caused her to tear her gaze away from the shadow. The one who knocked was Yasuhara, presenting her with a crooked smile.

"Called it," he said. "I knew you were still here."

She returned his playful tone. "It's better to stay put when you know you're lost."

"Come on, let's get going. I'm sure Dr. Matsuzaki's itching to go home and I'm sure we'll get an earful if we're late."

"Yeah," she replied. Fastening her bag onto her shoulder, she glanced out the window again, but the shadow wasn't there anymore.

"So, what are your impressions of the school so far?" he asked as he guided them through a series of corridors and then out the building.

"I didn't expect the school to be this big," Mai said, scanning the courtyard. On one side, there was a class of juniors playing volleyball, though most of them weren't taking it seriously. On another side were a few pole vault athletes practicing their jumps—Yasuhara said they had a competition next week. One group jogged around the field, the leading runner showing off as his admirers swooned, but because he wasn't looking where he's going, he collided with a badminton player.

"Welcome to the real world," he chuckled. "You've been cooped up in the hospital far too long. See, over there? Those are people. This is a field. And that? That's a garden. Amazing, isn't it?"

She rolled her eyes and snorted. "I know what all of those are."

With a fist clutching his chest, eyes wide behind his thickly rimmed glasses, he gasped and said, "Really?"

Her lips tilted up at one side, ready to retort, as her hand reached to clap Yasuhara on his back, but she stopped herself, clamped her mouth back shut and hastily retreated her arm. She looked forward instead and twisted the sides of her lips upwards rather forcefully.

Yasuhara noticed her sudden change in disposition and turned his head to her direction. "What's the matter?"

Before Mai could respond—or before Yasuhara could pry an answer from her—someone called to them. "Hey! Yasuhara, Mr. Kudo's lookin' for ya," a student told him. His classmate, Mai presumed.

"Sorry about this," Yasuhara said, scratching the back of his head. "See that building over there?" He pointed to the old structure at the other end of the courtyard. "That's where Dr. Matsuzaki and the rest of the team are. Sorry I couldn't accompany you the entire way."

"It's no problem," she said. "Thanks."

He gave her one last smile before he and his classmate left in a rush, arguing in low tones as they walked briskly toward the main school building. Mai traversed the rest of her journey alone, dodging stray balls and almost knocking into a hyperactive freshman running laps way off the track.

The courtyard was wider than she'd imagined, and it took a while before she got near the old building. Upon closer inspection, the structure seemed even more dilapidated. Its white paint was chipped off at the edges, turning into a grimy mix of grey and brown. The roof hung lower than it should and when the wind blew, it whistled odd tunes of the ill-maintained genre. Its windows told the story of a paradox: the glass still held plastic coating that one might expect on a brand new set, and yet here and there they were either streaked with old rainwater or shattered by unknown rogues. Though despite it all, the door beneath the windows retained its regal aura, preserved by a handsome varnish.

Two people were approaching, walking side-by-side as they conversed. They came from the other side of the courtyard, opposite of where she came from. A flash of blonde hinted at her peripheral and, noticing who it was, Mai nailed her feet to the ground. And then she just stood there.

Frankly, she didn't know what to do. She rarely ever saw the same ghost in such a short period of time. She rarely ever saw the same ghost, period.

It was the foreigner she saw talking with the black-haired guy this morning. He was younger than she'd thought—seemed to be her age. Maybe even younger. He was just a few inches taller than her, and it was hard to imagine that his wide blue eyes belonged to anyone else but a first year high school student, or even a middle school aged child. And when he smiled, it was even harder to imagine that he was dead.

And beside him was . . .

 _Ayako?!_

But that's impossible! Ayako's alive! And Mai knew for a fact that Ayako couldn't see dead people!

She broke into a run, hoping to catch up to them before they went into the building. She tried shouting at Ayako, but only gasps came out of her lips, greedy for more air to fill her lungs. Alas, they'd entered the building without noticing her. The door shut, echoes resounding loudly in her ears.

Slowing down as she neared the closed entrance, she paused to catch her breath, banging a fist into her chest over and over again as she coughed. When finally she had sucked in enough air to satisfy her lungs, she looked into a window—wiping off a good amount of dust first—and scanned the room inside for any sign of Ayako.

But instead, there are two men inside. Both are wearing hard hats for construction work, as well as garb that matched them: bright colored vests over long-sleeved shirts and loose-fitting pants. The first one is on his knees, kneeling as low as possible as he glares at the wooden floor in contempt. The second one has his back to the other man, gesturing madly at one of the balusters in front of them. Red in the face and screaming at the top of his lungs, although she cannot hear, it seems that the second man is scolding the one on his knees.

He points a finger at the baluster from top to bottom, whips out a protractor and promptly hurls it at the kneeling man. At that moment, Mai hears what he's saying.

 _"Does this look like a ninety-degree angle to you?!"_

And just then, another man came into the room. He walked briskly despite carrying three huge boxes stacked on top of each other, threatening to overthrow his tall frame. Inside the boxes were various electrical equipment of different shapes and sizes. Wires hung off the sides, sweeping the floor. Strangely, as he walked by, he ignored the other men, one who is still yelling as the other who stays glued to the ground.

 _Don't!_ Mai thought, hoping the tall man would hear her. _Don't go near the stairs!_

But he continued his way up and halfway through, one of the wires got tangled with that baluster. One more step had the wire taut and another step had enough force to pull the baluster, knocking it to one side. It was more obvious now that the baluster did not stand at a ninety-degree angle.

Mai yanked the door open, knowing that the tall man was in danger. "Stop!" she shouted. "Don't go any further!"

He turned, trying to see who spoke as he balanced the boxes in his arms. When he did, several pairs of footsteps thundered across the hallway upstairs. Someone got to the second floor landing first, though Mai could only see the person's feet—their severely injured bare feet. And still, as the tall man turned, he continued climbing up, so Mai did something to stop him. She did something pretty stupid to stop him.

She grabbed the entangled wire and yanked it.

And of course, the tall man went along with it, since after all, he was holding it. The baluster popped out of its place as well.

In some way, the scene that enfolded flowed in morbid slow motion through her eyes. She watched as the boxes came down first, fallen equipment orchestrating a symphony of thumps and crashes as they hit the floor. And for the ascending finale, a bone-chilling thud reverberated throughout the room as the man's shoulder met solid ground.

The footsteps from upstairs hastened down the stairway, bringing five people into the first floor. The first one was the foreigner she saw this morning. Second was a guy in his twenties, wearing jeans and a statement shirt about the government, his long brown hair up in a ponytail. Then Ayako, with a short-haired girl in a kimono following the doctor close by. Last was _him_ —the young man in all black from this morning.

They all zeroed in on the tall man as he lay on the ground motionless. He grunted underneath the boxes that dwarfed him, trying to push them away so he could breathe properly. But suddenly, he screamed, yelping in pain—the reaction he should have emulated the moment he fell.

Then Mai realized why.

At first glance, the tall man's hands were red, red, _red_. His palms wore angry streaks and blood dripped from them, revealing more than just red—they had orange and yellow and white, too.

"Mai, call an ambulance quickly," Ayako ordered, rushing to the tall man's side and inspecting his injuries. "Mr. Lin's shoulder is dislocated. Hands—second degree burns."

Everyone in the room gasped and, despite the confusion still clouding their features, swiftly set into motion to help Mr. Lin. The girl in the kimono reached into one of her sleeves, pulled out a handkerchief and gave it to Ayako, who soaked it with water from the bottle she was carrying and then covered the burns.

"Splint," she said calmly. "Takigawa, find me one. Mr. Brown, get the table cloth we found in one of the rooms upstairs."

The long haired guy scanned the room for something sturdy enough to be a splint and when he found one, he shot across the room and gave it to Ayako. The foreigner came back from the second floor with a dusty white cloth in his arms. He shook it clean before handing it to the doctor.

"Have you called for an ambulance, Mai?" Ayako asked, but then realizing who she was talking to, she clucked her tongue. "My phone's in my left pocket."

Mai reached inside the doctor's pocket, avoiding stray limbs of both Ayako and Mr. Lin, who had one of his arms in Ayako's grasps. She stood after securing the phone, dialing 119. As the dial tone rang in her ears, she looked up, avoiding the sight of the tall man's burns. Instead she was faced with the ghost she saw this morning.

But no—he wasn't, was he? The man named Takigawa was talking to him right now, and he responded. Although, he was preoccupied with the sight before him: the stairs. He picked up the baluster that was still entangled with electrical wires. Narrowing his eyes, he directed his gaze at her, two pairs locked on like magnets from the same whole.

 _"119, what is your emergency?"_

-:-:-:-:-


	3. Riddle and Puzzle

_A/N: Initially, I thought of saying something clever like 'oh wait i meant two months not two weeks! ahahaha!' But then I changed my mind. It's certainly an improvement though, right? Compared to... eleven months... (I should really stop making promises. As you all might have noticed – I suck at keeping them.) Good news though! I_ _'_ _m on the path to becoming a real writer mwahahaha This past year I_ _'_ _ve been writing articles for two online magazinesssss! One is focused on entertainment and the other on finance_ °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° _...um that's why I haven_ _'t been updating like I should_ _'ve (and with Distractions too gah)_

 _But anyhoooo as an apology for being late (again) here's a little hint to help you along: There are three types of tenses, right? Right._

 _A million thankies to_ Xymena Falling _for beta reading!_

 _Thank you for waiting and I hope you enjoy~ Tell me what you think after you read, kay?_

* * *

 **PHANTASMAGORIA**

 _3: Riddle and Puzzle  
_

.

"Mai, I'm going ahead with Mr Lin to the hospital," Ayako said, blue and red lights painting her serious features as the ambulance's sirens drowned out her voice. "Are you coming along?"

Medics hustled around Mr Lin, who was lying on a stretcher. It seemed as if he was sleeping, but scrunched eyebrows and poorly disguised huffs proved otherwise. His burnt hands were soaked in two small tubs of water, his shoulder wrapped tightly in a splint.

"Why doesn't this man have an ice pack on his shoulder yet?!" Ayako yelled to no one in particular.

The youngest medic's eyes grew wide. He scrambled inside the ambulance and hurriedly searched the fridge. When Mr Lin finally had an ice pack on his shoulder, Ayako nodded and turned back to face Mai. "So?"

Mai pursed her lips, narrowing her eyes at all the IV bags and syringes and bandages inside. "I can walk."

"Suit yourself." The doctor shrugged and got into the ambulance, sitting beside Mr Lin. Ayako knocked on the window behind the driver and shouted, "Let's go!"

As the vehicle sped away, Mai raised her hand but did not bother to wave. "Bye," she mumbled.

Shutting her eyes tightly as she covered them with a palm, she sighed and thought of having to apologize to the tall man later. She imagined how red his hands were, skin peeling off slowly as blood seeped through. Then, she imagined her hands in the same state. She preferred the latter scenario.

"Are you okay?" asked someone from behind her, his voice laced with a distinct accent. He tried to place his hand on Mai's shoulder, but before he could, Mai jumped back and gasped.

"Don't touch me," she whispered, glassy eyes looking up through her fringe. Although Mai knew the foreigner wasn't one of _them_ after all, she couldn't control her body from automatically flinching away from him.

"I . . ." Arm still midair, he folded his fingers into a fist and brought it to his lips. He cleared his throat twice and scratched the back of his head. "I'm sorry . . . I haven't introduced myself earlier. My name's John Brown."

Mai quickly composed herself, hiding her shaking hands behind her back. "I'm Mai," she said, trying to smile. "Taniyama."

"Nice to meet you." John Brown beamed. Out of habit, he reached out to shake her hand, but he instantly corrected himself, bowing his head instead.

Behind John, the others hovered. The long haired man stared with curious eyes, one brow raised. The girl in a kimono covered the lower half of her face with a sleeve, though Mai somehow knew the girl was talking to the young man next to her.

And that young man . . . He should have been dead.

"N-nice to meet you too," she replied as she hitched her bag higher on her shoulders. "I have to go."

She retreated two steps backwards and, though she tried to restrain herself, ran full speed ahead. Without thought and without direction, she willed her legs to carry her away . . . away.

She knew – she _proved_ to herself that John Brown wasn't a ghost. She'd drilled the notion into her mind again and again. But for all the times she had encountered _them_ , it was reflex by now taking over her senses.

The first time she talked to a ghost was when she was six years old, right after her father died. It was him, watching television as he blew on a cup of coffee – like he used to do every morning. It wasn't an experience enough to scar her for life; she admitted it was a good memory.

The ghost she saw last year, on the other hand . . .

Involuntarily, she rubbed the fading scar on her neck, from behind her left ear to the space between her clavicles.

"Would it be too much," she muttered, the wind her only witness. "To stop thinking?"

She slowed to a jog and then stopped entirely, looking around for the first time. She had gotten herself lost. Again.

Around her is a jungle of concrete, gray squares and rectangles going on for miles and miles. There are a few thin trees here and there, sparse along the sidewalk, as if they exist only to reassure those who live in this world that, however scant, there is still air to breathe.

One building stands out in particular – a wooden behemoth, standing tall and proud. It's the library Mai often visits these days, a sanctuary she could get herself lost in as she waits for her mother to come home from work. Her friends think she's so hardworking because she hangs out here all the time. What they don't know is that (shh) the library houses her favorite comic book series.

Although, these days she visits for a different reason. A _sensible_ reason. High school entrance exams are coming up soon and she's up to her neck with books to cram and pressure to ignore. She won't be able to study everything all on her own, she knew – her attention span isn't cooperative enough for that – but she got lucky this time.

She found herself a tutor a week ago, and the only payment he requires is a can of tea from a convenience store for every time he teaches her. That, and directions. This weird guy wants to go to all sorts of weird places, like abandoned mansions and unfinished bridges.

He's from Sendai in the Miyagi Prefecture and it's his first time in Tokyo. He's travelling alone for some reason, during the middle of the school year on top of that. He refuses to explain whenever she pesters him for an answer. She thinks he dropped out of school and ran away from home.

Drop out or not, she admits he's smart. Not just the typical book smart or street smart . . . He's smart and – and _smart_. He looks at things differently. Even with the odd way he explains concepts to her, she understands what he means all the time.

And there he is, behind a column atop the library's front steps. He is leaning against the post, looking at his watch. Shadows cover him like a veil.

She could not see him at all.

A shock went through Mai, from the crown of her head to the top of her spine, like liquid ice so cold that it was burning her veins. Travelling as swift as lightning, three times it came, three times it went, three times she almost fainted. The pain was too much.

She clutched her forehead with one hand, thumb and ring finger crushing both temples. She hugged herself with one arm as she gasped for air, shallows breath reaching her ears but not her lungs. Screams raged through her mind to stop, don't freak out, it's okay, you're fine, this is nothing, don't think.

"Hey . . . Are you okay? What –" Someone was shaking her shoulders gently. His voice was tinged with concern and urgency. It wasn't a voice she recognized and yet . . . it was familiar. But even as she tried to remember where she heard it, she couldn't think beyond _'Don't do this to yourself Mai.'_

Still with closed eyes, she felt herself being drawn away from where she had been standing. Small steps lead her to a bench.

"Wait here, I'll be back soon," he said, though Mai barely heard him.

Her breathing slowed though her heartbeat remained rampant. She looked up, blinking as stars flashed in and out of the darkening twilit sky. The small medicine bottle she had in her pocket was a black hole in her side, waiting for her to be sucked in.

She was about to reach for it when two feet stepped into her vision. It was the person who tried to calm her down earlier, standing indecisively in front of her with his wrists deep into his coat pockets.

Mai wanted nothing more than to reach into the black hole at her side.

"Drink this, it will calm you down," the young man said – the same young man who was supposed to be dead. "Or maybe not." He paused, contemplating. He held out an outstretched hand holding a black can and waited for her to take it. "I suppose black tea makes one more antsy, but it always calms . . . me down."

Raising her gaze to confirm what she already knew, her eyes skirted along the outline of his clothes, staring instead at the library behind him to catch his face only through peripherals. Despite having to rely only on the outer corners of her field of vision, she clearly saw the looming shadow mirroring his stance, embracing his form like a veil of darkness.

Hesitating at first, she took the can and opened it with difficulty. After four tries, she claimed victory as the can cried with a fizzle. She traced its label, ignoring frenzied lightning bolts between her eyes that threatened to split her head open. Before she could change her mind, she swung her head back and chugged the can's contents in several gulps until she finished it.

It didn't calm her down. In fact, it made her headache even worse.

"Thanks," she gasped out in between ragged breaths, keeping her eyes on her fingernails, on her shoes, on hairline cracks on the pavement.

"You were on your way to the hospital," he said, filling in the awkward pause between them. He stated it as a fact and not a question. "Do you mind if I come with you." There it was again – an _un_ question.

"Sure."

They headed to the hospital in silence, wordlessly playing a despondent game of _'follow the leader'_ as they trudged in single file. Mai led the young man through a shortcut she knew like the back of her hand: through the park. For years she'd been going this way from her house to her grade school and middle school. The route was out of the way now from her house and to her current school, but from the hospital it was still a shortcut.

In the middle of the wide park was the grungy fountain she knew well, with a skinny tree standing behind it as a dutiful umbrella. Unkempt roots slithered along its circumference, moss creeping along inside.

Whenever she passed by it, she always _always_ avoided it.

The young man behind her matched her accelerating pace with ease.

She avoided lots of things, she admitted. Vegetables, closure, social interaction, stray limbs. There was one right now – right up her route.

A middle-aged woman lay frozen on the ground, spread eagle. Her cracked skull was being cradled by the sharp edge of a stray brick, which was raised ten centimeters from where it should have been. Blood pooled around her.

Her leg was in the way.

Mai broke the steady tempo of her steps and moved sideways, continuing along the other side of the pathway. The young man behind her followed silently.

They travelled the rest of the way without any more hurdles, without any words between them. Screaming sirens greeted them as they approached the hospital, people rushing around them accompanied by wails that matched an ambulance's. Mai headed away from the emergency area and passed through the visitor's entrance. It wasn't much of an improvement – people still scampered aimlessly around her.

"Do you know where Lin is," the young man behind her said, and she was reminded of his presence.

"Upstairs," she lied.

Mr Lin was still probably at the common ward of the emergency area, his injuries being treated by the ER doctors. But for the sake of keeping her sanity, she avoided that place, too. She sought out Ayako instead. Her shift was almost over, so Mai knew for sure the doctor was lazing around in her office at the fifth floor, watching reruns of her favorite variety show.

Mai scuffled straight to the elevators. As she pushed the _up_ button, she dodges a random coin some kid is playing with. It rolls straight at her, stopping where her foot will have landed, but she is fast enough to sidestep it.

She gave the kid a wide berth.

An upbeat _ding_ resounded from the elevator as it opened its foreboding mouth. Usually, she wouldn't even think of riding an elevator. It made her uncomfortable being in such close proximity with several people she didn't know, and she couldn't help being filled with sonder. It boggled her mind that these strangers had lives as complex as her own; she wouldn't mind not having to think about them.

The only time she would ride elevators was if she was in the hospital and if Ayako was with her, since no one else would dare ride with them. People here generally treated the Chairman's daughter with respect. Or as Ayako called it: the desire to keep their jobs.

The doctor got special treatment all the time, and even though it seemed like Ayako loved not doing anything, she actually hated it. Ayako would keep ranting to Mai how she wanted to prove herself, that she wasn't helpless and she could do what every doctor in her division here could. And more. But regardless of Ayako's fervor to showcase her abilities, the chairman – her father – kept holding her back.

And add to that the stint she pulled last month . . . well. For now Ayako was stuck with unimportant paperwork. Although, it wasn't that Ayako didn't have any patients . . . She had _one_.

The elevator stopped, shuddering slightly. Its metallic doors slid open to a busy hallway. A couple of nurses zoomed past Mai and the young man, chasing after a twelve-ish boy who was surprisingly quick at his feet. He ran barefoot, steps as silent as a ninja, but his unbridled maniacal laughter ruined his chances at stealth.

Ayako's office was at the back end of the fifth floor. They would have to pass through a long hallway to get there. Hopefully, all the patients residing at the rooms of that hall had already been sedated.

"Look," whispered a high-pitched voice not so discreetly. "The _special_ patient."

Mai ignored the giggles that followed behind her. The long corridor stretched endlessly in front of her, doors peppered across both sides alternately, an iridescent painting waiting for her at the end. The hall was at the middle of a three-way junction. To the left was Ayako's office and to the right was Mai's room.

"Are you sure Lin's here," the young man behind her said, and again she was reminded about his company. She kept forgetting about him. Or at least, she pretended to forget about him.

He had one eyebrow raised and she thought he was waiting for an answer, but he wasn't looking at her.

There was an open door to his right, showing a room devoid of personal belongings. Even the bed didn't have any covers. A toddler was inside, staring wordlessly out a window. She was wearing a hospital gown, hugging a stuffed toy fiercely.

"Almost there," Mai answered as she led him west.

The door to Ayako's office did not stand out in any way, made with white laminated wood and supported by hinges that never ceased to creak. It was the same as all the doors on this floor. In fact, Ayako's office had once been a private room for patients. She claimed it as her own when she started working here.

Mai turned the knob, but before she could push the door, it suddenly swung open and revealed a distracted Ayako.

"Oh – hey, there you are," Ayako huffed, pocketing her phone and keys. "I forgot that I brought my car to your school this morning. I'm on my way to pick it up right now."

"You're still wearing your –"

The doctor clucked her tongue, realizing that she was still wearing her white coat. Grunting as she shoved it off, she took the contents of her coat pocket and tossed them to Mai. She went back into the room and grabbed a stray cardigan off the floor.

"Let's grab dinner while we're at it." Ayako checked her watch. "Do you have your medicine with you?"

"Yes," Mai replied. Behind her, an impatient foot tapped on the tiled floor five times.

"Leave them here. I'll give them back tomorrow before you go to school."

When Ayako finished fixing her stuff, she finally stepped out of the room and noticed the young man behind Mai.

"Oh, Mr Shibuya," Ayako blurted, blinking twice, then comprehension dawned her expression. "You're here to see Mr Lin."

Mr Shibuya nodded. Mai threw a puzzled look at Ayako, surprised that the woman was calling a teenager _Mister._

"He's resting at the common ward in ER. I'll show you the way." Ayako ignored Mai and started walking, checking her watch again.

Mai and Shibuya followed her across the hallway. Furious whispering echoed from the nurse's station. One of those voices cackled while the others shushed.

"His palms were in a worse state than I predicted. He has second degree burns, bordering on third," Ayako explained as she got inside the elevator. "But the medics did a good job with first aid, so his hands should be fine in around two to three weeks. He will have to stay here tonight for observation. "

Mai's hands grew hot as Ayako droned on about Mr Lin's injuries, guilt weighing down her body.

"How is his shoulder," Shibuya asked, though the tone of his voice stayed flat so it sounded like a statement.

"It's not as bad as it seemed. According to the doctor in charge of him, the muscles around his bones were untouched and only a few ligaments were torn." Ayako stepped out of the elevator and headed straight to the east wing. "His arm will be in a sling for a month and a half."

At the sight of two metal doors at the other side of the lobby, Mai froze. Spelled out on top of them was her least favorite word: EMERGENCY.

"Hey, um, Ayako," Mai stammered. She pointed to the main entrance. "I'll wait for you over there."

"Sure," the doctor replied without skipping a beat. Ayako and Shibuya continued to the ER without glancing her way.

Mai let out a huge sigh and trotted to the main entrance. The kid is still there, playing with his coin. It rolls over to her again and, prepared this time, Mai took a wider step to dodge it.

There was a sculpture of the god Mercury in front of the hospital, pointing his caduceus at the gate as if to zap all the sick people seeking his aid. Mai leaned on some metal railings, averting her eyes from the statue and the shadows behind it. She peeked instead inside the hospital where it was bright and full of people.

Ayako sauntered out of the emergency room, her phone stuck to her ear. From how she rolled her eyes and how tense her jaw was, Mai presumed it was a call from Mrs Matsuzaki.

Mai glanced at the enormous circular clock hanging behind the reception counter. 7 o'clock. Right on schedule.

"Yes, yes, I'm on the way right now with Mai," Ayako grunted. She hooked arms with Mai and led her down the flight of stairs and to the gates. "We'll eat at that organic restaurant you recommended. Yes . . . Yes . . . Ye – No! I won't, okay? Mom, I'm hanging up now. I'll talk to you again soon."

Ayako ended the call and stuffed her phone into her jeans pocket. She inhaled deeply, puffing her cheeks and refusing to exhale. Mai mentally counted to eleven before Ayako finally released her breath.

"You should at least visit," Mai said. Ayako and her mom would end their conversations everyday with the same farewell, with _'Come home'_ and _'No way'._

Ayako hailed a cab in reply.

Once they were settled inside the car, Mai asked, "Does Auntie know about your new . . . project?" Mai hesitated on the last word; the girl never knew what to call what Ayako did. Gigs? Part-time work?

"Are _you_ going to tell her?" Ayako's voice hiked up a pitch.

Mai pretended to ponder. "Depends on the casualties, I guess."

"Well there won't be any so you better not tell her," Ayako nagged, rubbing her forearm unconsciously. It was a line Mai had heard more than twenty times already.

"What's the request this time?" Mai asked, but she didn't sound sincere. She wasn't interested in the answer.

"Your principal wants to replace the old school building with a pool," Ayako started anyway. "Says the board's been pestering him since they received the budget already. But every time they try to demolish the building, something or another fucks up."

Mai hummed in agreement but didn't say anything.

"He didn't elaborate on what _exactly_ has been happening, but he insists it's the work of a vengeful spirit."

The cab driver stopped mid-yawn and looked into his rear-view mirror, locking gazes with Mai, eyes wide open.

Mai paid no heed to his questioning gawk. "Evidence?"

"Just second-hand testimonies from construction workers that we heard from the principal." Ayako paused. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear.

Mai knew from experience that Ayako was choosing her words right now, deciding whether or not to tell Mai the whole truth.

"A construction worker from two months ago had the same injury as Mr Lin," Ayako continued. "Mr Shibuya told me so while we were on the way to the ER."

"A . . . a dislocated shoulder?" Mai guessed, though she knew it wasn't the right answer.

"Burns. On both palms." The doctor pursed her lips. "The group will start investigating tomorrow, but it's certain that Mr Lin's burns aren't normal."

"That's true," Mai agreed with a weak voice.

Their conversation morphed into silence, the cab's air conditioner whirring in the background. The driver coughed a few times.

"How much do you think Mr Lin's hospital bill's gonna be?" She leaned her head against a window. Traffic was horrible outside.

"You really want to know?"

". . . Not really."

Ayako crossed her arms. "It's already been paid. His bill."

"Seriously?" Mai's guilt did not lift, though some strain in her shoulders left her. She resisted the urge to sigh in relief.

"Yeah. One hundred percent."

The cab stopped in front of her school. Now that she saw the building during the night, she couldn't blame anyone for thinking it was haunted.

"Think they'll make me pay?" Mai fixed her gaze on a window from the third floor, worrying at her lip.

Ayako smirked, amused no doubt. "Was it your fault that he fell?"

". . . Yes."

"There you go. Your answer," Ayako laughed.

And true enough . . . The next day, Mai was called to the principal's office. Mr Shibuya was waiting for her there, with an offer of a part-time job she could not refuse.

Literally. She couldn't refuse.

"Here's a breakdown of the damages you've caused to Lin and the company. Included there is his hospital bill, excluding the treatment for his hands. The broken equipment that fell down with him is also listed there."

Shibuya handed her an innocent looking piece of paper. All she could see were numbers, numbers, numbers scattered everywhere.

"You may choose to pay me back for the loss, but . . ."

 _Impossible_ , Mai thought, staring blankly at the piece of paper. _One thousand man yen. Impossible_.

"If you can't pay me back," Shibuya continued. "You can fill in as an assistant."

"Um . . . Mr Lin's assistant?" Mai wanted to slam her head to a wall – repeatedly. All she wanted was a peaceful high school life. Heck, all she wanted was to stay at the hospital, in solidarity, worrying about nothing at all. A perfectly peaceful life.

She just _had_ to get mixed up here – and with Ayako's side job too. In the _ghost hunting_ business of all things . . .

" _My_ assistant, actually. Let me formally introduce myself," he said, fixing the button on his black blazer. "I am Kazuya Shibuya, CEO of Shibuya Psychic Research. I look forward to working with you, Mai Taniyama."

-:-:-:-:-


	4. Portentousness

**PHANTASMAGORIA**

 _4: Portentousness_

.

Mai didn't know what to call her new boss.

Sure, she called him 'Mr Shibuya' when addressing him, but . . . last year, he had told her to call him another name. Although, seeing as he wasn't acknowledging her as someone he knew . . . She should do the same, right? It kinda pissed her off that he didn't remember her though.

"So . . . what exactly are we doing again, Mr Shibuya?" Mai asked, pulling randomly at the tangled electrical cords of this . . . thing. Mai could guess that it was some sort of microphone, but she couldn't be too sure. It wasn't like anything she'd seen before. Microphones were supposed to be on stands or attached to cameras, right? Well, the one her new boss handed her was supposed to be attached to a ceiling. Now she understood why Mr Shibuya hired super tall Mr Lin.

Mr Shibuya tucked his chin slightly and narrowed his eyes for a short moment. It was a subtle change from his normal deadpan expression, but Mai noticed because he'd done it several times in just this afternoon alone. Probably tired with all her questions. "We are installing microphones and camcorders in rooms that have been said to have had paranormal phenomenon in the past. After that, we will organize the monitors at the base. If we still have time later, we must make a rough blueprint of the building. Your principal didn't provide one."

"Okay but," Mai said, scrunching her eyebrows. Her face soured at the idea of being ordered to do more grunt work. "What does all that have to do with exorcising ghosts?"

The sound was infinitesimal, but Mai was sure he just clucked his tongue at her. "I'm not here to exorcise ghosts, nor am I here to catch them—I'm here to study them," he stated, fiddling with a tripod to make it stable. He then took the microphone from Mai's hands and affixed it at the ceiling corner in front of the staircase, setting a small camera next to it. "My business, to most people, is perceived as 'ghost hunting'. Although . . . those two words don't truly catch the essence of what I wish to accomplish."

"What do you wish to accomplish, then?" Mai asked, half-curious, half-irritated. Whatever his reason was, it better be worth all this heavy-lifting.

She really didn't understand why they had to go through all this trouble. She seriously hadn't expected to shoulder so much manual labor! With what she'd heard from Ayako, all she expected from this 'assistant' job was to participate in an exorcising ritual or something. Ouija boards and weird religious mantras and stuff like that. Wasn't that what usually entailed 'ghost hunting'?

"Parapsychology," he replied, but didn't immediately elaborate—to Mai's chagrin. He stepped away to regard his work, nudging the microphone slightly to distance it from the adjacent wall, and then picked up a box full of wires and small gadgets. He handed it to Mai, who huffed at the unexpected weight.

"Parapsychology is a study concerned with the investigation of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy, psychometry, apparitional experiences and the like, which employs the use of the scientific method of investigation," he continued, his tone flat and robotic, as if he was conjuring this entire impromptu lecture from practiced memory. "It is considered a study. However, attempts to scientifically explain these phenomena have all been considered nonsense. Why do you think so? Because up until this point of time, no one has been competent enough to have gathered enough material."

Mr Shibuya paused in his tirade to examine the foyer, making sure he hadn't forgotten anything. Meanwhile, Mai's head was . . . spinning. All this complicated talk about sciences and studies contradicted her idea of the supernatural. Wasn't it supposed to be nonsensical? Most people didn't believe in the very idea of ghosts, so wasn't it a moot point to do all of this? What was he to gain by convincing a few people with his 'materials' that spirits and psychic phenomena existed?

Mai bit her tongue. As much as she wanted to question Mr Shibuya's conviction, she could feel that she was gonna be thrusted with another long speech if she did. Racking her brain, she thought of a neutral response to deflate the conversation.

"Right so um. These . . . materials. You're, like, gathering evidence to support your investigation?" she said. Mr Shibuya started walking away and she followed, heaving the box she was carrying to her chest.

"Yes," he replied as he passed by the staircase.

"That's kinda—" Mai halted mid-sentence as she bumped into Mr Shibuya's still form. He stared wordlessly at the floor—or rather, at something on the floor. Mai couldn't see because of the box in her arms. "What is it?" she asked.

Mr Shibuya crouched down to pick up the object. It was the fallen baluster.

"H-hey—wait. I'm not sure if you're supposed to touch that," Mai warned, unconsciously taking two steps back.

"And why not?" he countered without taking his eyes off of the baluster. It was old and worn, its varnish peeling off at the edges.

"Because . . ." Mai couldn't continue. She glanced at the staircase and bit her lip.

Mr Shibuya took one look at her conflicted expression and raised a brow. He swung the piece of wood onto his shoulder as if it was a baseball bat. "This could be material for me to study, then?"

"Um. I guess?" Did he see what she saw yesterday? Did he see the two men, too?

Mr Shibuya started walking again and Mai decided not to pursue the query. She had just gotten out of her 30-minute sessions with Ayako's mom. No need to go back there. Even though, yes, her new boss might need them as much as she did too, considering his single-minded obsession with a job that wasn't supposed to be a _real_ job to most people. Still, nobody should know she still saw them.

They walked in silence. Much like the other day, they played a despondent game of follow-the-leader, but Mr Shibuya was in command this time. He led her further into the building, passing by several doors before they got to the dilapidated sliding door of their 'base' of operations. It was supposed to be where they'd be observing the data they had gathered from all the cameras and stuff they'd been planting all over the place. Well, the key word here was 'supposed'.

Mr Shibuya opened the door and went into the room without missing a beat. Mai, on the other hand, just gawked at the humongous mess inside. Cables and monitors and several cardboard boxes littered the floor. There was a mountain of metal rods in a corner next to the windows, a discarded ball of paper equally abandoned beside the pile. Mai picked it up and smoothed it out. It was instructions on how to build a shelf.

Mai hung her head in defeat. Was she supposed to clean all this up too?

"Hey, uh, Mr Shibuya?" Mai called. She could feel a bead of sweat running down from her temple. "Where . . . Where do we start?"

Mr Shibuya, seeming not to have heard her, continued through the obstacle course that was their base. He headed straight to the desk at the other side of the room and began searching through the box on top of it. Out came a small monitor and—you guessed it—more wires. Spinning the monitor around until he found the input socket, he plugged several cords into the monitor and turned it on.

The screen showed nothing but blue. It was blank except . . . Huh. Mai squinted her eyes. There was one line of text against the blinding blue background. Mr Shibuya raised a hand as if to hit the monitor until it worked properly, but his hand halted midair and returned to his side shortly. Humming noncommittally, he decided to inspect the wires again and switched the red one and the white one.

The monitor worked properly this time, showing a live feed of the monitor they'd just installed in front of the staircase.

"Okay," Mr Shibuya said, huffing almost inaudibly. He looked around the room with cold indifference. "27 more to go."

Mai's eyes grew wide as her mouth dropped to the floor. No way. It was just too unfair that she was supposed to clean this hopeless mess just to make up for a tiny mistake! Sure she broke a camera. Yeah okay, she was the cause of Mr Lin's shoulder dislocation and possibly lots more broken bones. But it wasn't like she did all those things personally! It was an accident! A mistake! She shouldn't be held responsible for those damages!

. . . Not like she could just explode in an outburst like that. She was deluding herself. She knew damn well Mr Lin's fall was entirely her fault. What was it that possessed her to grab that cord and pull him down anyway?

A loud thud resounded throughout the room. Mr Shibuya had dropped one more monitor beside the first one he had installed. Mai's eyes glazed over it but—there was something moving in the background . . ? Mai could swear she saw a pair of bare, wounded feet atop the staircase. But she had looked away too fast, and when she squinted at the monitor again, the feet were gone.

Alarm signals blared inside her head. Whoa, okay so Mai knew this job was gonna involve ghosts because, duh, 'ghost hunting', but . . . She just wasn't too thrilled to see one more of them so soon.

"So N—Mr Shibuya," Mai started, her nervous jitters almost causing her tongue to slip. "Mr Shibuya, uh . . . Could we maybe negotiate my, ah, employment?"

Shifting his focus from the third monitor he was installing—it was blue again—he raised a brow in her direction. And smirked. "Shouldn't you have proposed that before you signed our agreement?"

Mai cheeks burned. Why was it suddenly so hot in here, dammit. "Well I felt like I was being cornered! I actually thought I'd go to jail if I didn't sign it!" she exclaimed, stomping one foot. Then she remembered that she was supposed to be bargaining, so she took in a deep breath and tried again with a softer tone. "Look, I've thought about it and maybe we can reach another agreement?"

Mr Shibuya crossed his arms. "What do you propose?"

"I really don't think I can keep up with my studies if I have a part-time job. And . . . Yeah, uh, Ayako can tell you about how I'm—" Mai gestured to the clutter surrounding them—"not supposed to, like, _move_ or anything. So . . . Can I maybe _pay_ for all the damages I caused instead?" Mai could feel sweat pooling at the nape of her neck.

Mr Shibuya blinked. Silence passed through them and Mai could feel gravity pull her down, down, down along with her mortification.

"And I'm really horrible with any type of technology! You wouldn't believe how many phones and computers I've broken!"

"How many?"

"Um. Three computers and five—no, six phones."

"Impressive. You can add one camcorder to that list."

Mai could feel heat rushing to her cheeks. "Yeah. So, uh, for the sake of us both, wouldn't it be better if I just pay for the damages and cut ties?"

"Okay then, I accept your terms," he said after a beat of silence, uncrossing his arms. He propped one hand against the desk behind him, while the other one reached into his pocket. "The camcorder you broke was a brand new thermal imaging model—fresh out the factory. Along with Lin's hospital bills, the total rounds up to . . ."

He took out a piece of paper from his pocket and offered it to Mai. She stepped forward hesitantly, nearly tripping over a box, then took the paper from him.

After taking exactly seventeen seconds to process the sum printed on it, Mai was very tempted to ball it up and put it in her mouth. Swallow it, then forget it ever existed. But she didn't do that—instead, she wordlessly returned the (slightly crumpled now) piece of paper back to Mr Shibuya.

"I'll get back to work now, boss."

She shuffled over to the other side of the room, fully intending to sit in a corner and think about life. Particularly, how unfair it is. Although . . . there weren't any vacant corners, she noticed. Nor were there any vacant floor space to be honest, what with all these wires and monitors and thingamajiggies scattered all over.

Sighing heavily, Mai decided she should deal with the mess now. She was gonna do it sooner or later anyway. Didn't really have a choice here, now did she.

She started with the mountain of metal rods, assembling it into the shelf it was supposed to be. Just when she was about to connect two of them with a rubber joint—someone whistled long and loud, incredulity apparent in that single note.

"Well _damn_. If I knew you were _this_ helpless without Ms Mori, then I never would have agreed to work with you again," said a deep voice Mai didn't recognize. "Are you _that_ lost without her, _deputy_?"

A man sauntered into the room, stepping on the wires without a care. Long brown hair in a ponytail, statement shirt that made no sense whatsoever, seemingly permanent smirk—he looked to be in his mid-twenties. With both hands in his jeans pockets, he regarded the room with amusement.

"You're free to leave whenever you like, Takigawa," Mr Shibuya responded icily. "I don't need apathetic individuals in my team."

"So you're saying, you'll leave the exorcisms to Ayako?"

Mr Shibuya winced.

"Yeah, thought so," Takigawa laughed. "Seriously though, this is such a drastic one-eighty compared to last month!"

"We're short on hands, if you haven't noticed," Mr Shibuya snapped, continuing his work on his fifth monitor. "I've instructed John and Ms Hara to investigate the perimeter. You should do the same."

"Nah, I think I'm more help here," Takigawa snickered, picking up two boxes on one go. "You're such a meanie to make Mai here do all the work."

"Uh." Mai pointed a finger to herself, head tilted to the side in confusion. "How do you know my name?"

"I told him that."

Ayako entered the room, head held up high as she took in its state. "No kidding though. This place is a mess."

"Lin was in charge of setting up the base." Mr Shibuya narrowed his eyes. He would've looked intimidating, though to Mai it just seemed like he was pouting.

"Oh well, it doesn't really matter," Ayako said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. "I'll get rid of the ghost here faster than you could set up your base."

Takigawa chortled. "Yeah, okay. That's exactly what you said last time."

"Tch. I did _not._ "

"Oh hey!" Mai snapped her fingers. "Is this when Ayako fractured her arm last month because of—oomph!"

Ayako covered Mai's mouth with said arm.

"If you're done chatting," Mr Shibuya said, glaring at them. "I seem to recall you people being here for _work._ "

"Yes, yes of course Mr Shibuya." Ayako gave him an angelic smile. "Mai and I'll be on our way. She needs to help me with my exorcism."

"Ms Taniyama is still in the middle of assembling the shelf."

Ayako waved her hand. "This outlaw can handle that. Mai shouldn't do much menial work anyway."

"I'm the outlaw," Takigawa grinned, hand raised.

Mr Shibuya sighed. "Bring this with you at least."

He handed Mai a notepad and a small rectangular . . . thing. She pushed a small button on top of it and it flashed three columns of digital numbers.

"Um. An alarm clock?"

"A thermometer," he corrected. Mai could hear the unspoken 'you idiot' tacked at the end of it. "Measure the temperature in all the rooms of the first floor. Should I be worried that you'll break this too?"

A corner of Mai's lips twisted up into a forced smile. "It looks sturdy enough, boss."

"Try to be back in an hour."

Ayako led Mai out the room and they crossed hallway after hallway, searching for a place where Ayako could change into her white _haori_ and red _hakama_. They ended up in what was once a biochem lab. Eight tables in total, fourteen cabinets surrounding two walls.

One of the cabinets starts to _fall_ —but when Mai blinked, it was no longer there. Marks were left in place, discoloration in the wall's paint the only indication of what had been there. The floor directly in front of it had dents and scratches.

Strangely, it was painful to look at. Mai averted her gaze.

Spying the built-in thermometer beside the chalkboard, Mai nearly smacked herself in the forehead. She and Ayako had passed through countless rooms already and she was supposed to take note of the temperature!

"Ugh." Mai took out the thermometer and her notepad. 11° C.

. . . Was that normal? Mai remembered the weatherman saying that today was supposed to be an unusually warm spring day.

She shrugged it off. Weather forecasts were always wrong anyway.

"Hey so," Mai whispered to Ayako even though she knew they were totally alone. "When exactly did Mr Takigawa . . . get out of prison?"

Ayako, who had been tying her hair with a white ribbon, paused and blinked once, two times, then burst out in laughter.

"P-priso—ahaha!" Ayako couldn't talk through her fit of giggles, even going as far as hugging her stomach since she couldn't breathe properly. "Who could blame you for thinking that though!"

"W-well what was I supposed to say?! You said he's an outlaw!"

Ayako couldn't stop laughing. "Yeah he is. But not that kind!"

Rolling her eyes as she picked up Ayako's discarded clothes, she asked, "What else could an outlaw be, Ayako?"

"He didn't introduce himself to you, now did he? He's a monk—from Mt Kouya to boot," Ayako said, rolling up her sleeves. "But he was kicked out because, well, just _look_ at him." Ayako laughed again.

"So he was kicked out because he wanted to grow out his hair?"

"Mai. Have you seen monks with long, luscious hair?"

"You think his hair is luscious?"

". . . Not the point."

"Yeah, you're right. The only monks I've seen in books are bald and fat. Mr Takigawa's none of those, huh?"

"Hmm. Nice mental image you got there. Fat Takigawa." Ayako snorted.

"He's not the only strange one here, at least," Mai snickered. "Oh, what's a doctor doing here playing Shrine Maiden?"

"Shut your trap. I get enough of that from my relatives," Ayako huffed. She handed her bag to Mai. "Well anyway, we should get going—Mr Shibuya told me to start at the foyer."

"Do all of you know each other?" Mai asked as they started walking, swishing around Ayako's _haraigushi_ in the air.

Ayako yanked her stick away from Mai. "No, not everyone. I met Masako from a party last year. Then Mr Shibuya and Takigawa—I worked together with them last month. We had a different team leader though."

"Oh? So Mr Shibuya's not the original boss?"

"Nope. Madoka Mori was in charge of SPR last month, though we knew she was leaving soon."

"SPR?" Mai asked. "Where'd she go?"

"SPR's the company you work for now, you dolt," Ayako flicked Mai's forehead. "Mr Shibuya's supposedly meant to be in charge of SPR, she was just there to start things up."

"What's up with that anyway? Why do you call him 'Mr Shibuya?' He's younger than you, isn't he?"

"Well I . . ." Ayako looked away. "Oh hey, Masako! Why isn't John with you?"

There was a girl wearing a kimono standing directly in front of the staircase. Mai had seen her the other day, covering half her face with a kimono sleeve—just as she was doing right now. Mai couldn't put a finger on it, but she was sure she knew this girl from somewhere.

"You just missed him. Takigawa called him to the base," the kimono-clad girl said. "Who is this?"

"I'm Mai Taniyama. SPR's new part-timer, I guess."

"Masako Hara. Medium. Nice to meet you," she said, bowing. "We're the same, aren't we?"

"W-what?"

"This man." Masako pointed at an empty space in front of where the fallen baluster once was. "You saw him yesterday too, didn't you? When Mr Lin fell."

Mai stared at the place Masako was pointing at, looking at it from top to bottom. No matter how many times she blinked, there was no man present.

"I don't see anyone there . . ."

Masako hummed in contemplation. "Is that so."

"So there's one right here, huh? You sure about that?" Ayako asked haughtily.

"Yes."

Ayako stared at the medium for a moment. "This isn't an act, right? You're pretty convincing, to be honest. Now I get why lots of people watch your show."

"Show?" asked Mai.

"Really Mai. You haven't heard of it? Masako Hara here is the star of a famous TV show where she summons spirits," Ayako explained, then murmured, "Well I can't blame you really. I don't remember your room having a TV."

"You _summon_ them?" Mai asked incredulously, eyes wide.

"No. I channel them."

"That's even worse! Oh my gosh, that must have been rough for you," Mai sympathized, stepping closer to the medium. She took Masako's hands in hers. "It must have been awful."

"Not really." Masako offered a hesitant smile. "If I severe the link fast enough, it isn't that bad."

"Why haven't you started, Ms Matsuzaki?"

Mr Shibuya's voice suddenly echoed in the room. Mai turned around to see him standing at the top of the stairs, leaning on the fallen baluster as if it was a cane. Takigawa and the foreigner flanked behind him.

"I just got here, sheesh. Get down from there if you want me to work faster." Ayako inspected her perfectly manicured nails.

When Mr Shibuya got down from the second floor he took one look at Masako and said, "I believe I haven't introduced myself to you. I am Kazuya Shibuya, owner of Shibuya Psychic Research. It is a pleasure to work with you, Ms Hara."

Masako stared at him for the longest moment. ". . . The pleasure is all mine," she finally said, then shifted her gaze to the baluster in his hand. "You should let go of that right away."

Instead of dropping it, Mr Shibuya lifted it up and brought it down on the floor suddenly, a sharp clack of wood on wood resounding throughout the room. "I quite like it though. Why should I throw it away?"

"The spirit might target you if he sees you with that."

"I'll deal with it if it happens," Mr Shibuya said.

"Now then, shall we get started with Ayako's performance?" Takigawa boomed from beside John Brown. "Look forward to it," he said to the blond, elbowing his side.

"Oh I've always wanted to witness a Shinto ritual for the longest time," John Brown agreed.

"Okay, okay. Enough chit-chat. I gotta concentrate," Ayako grumbled. "Mai, bring me my bells."

Mai reached into her pocket and handed them to the priestess, the bells' white ribbons flowing freely beneath her hands. Ayako conjured two small branches from her own pockets and tied the bells to them, then attached them in front of the staircase. Mai readied Ayako's _shinki_ set as well, but Ayako had to redo it all because Mai got the order of the vases wrong.

All noise in the room ceased to a hush as Ayako fell gracefully to her knees. She lifted her _haraigushi_ and waved it in front of her. Left and right—a steady tempo.

" _I humbly ask your aid,"_ Ayako started. " _Descend upon this unholy place and make it pure. Exorcise this demon as you have so many before."_

The hairs on Mai's arms started tingling, goosebumps spreading across her body little by little as Ayako continued her incantation. Mai could feel the temperature dropping, and the silence of the room was interrupted by the thermometer in her pocket. It was beeping like crazy.

" _Listen both peacefully and calmly, and speak the Kannon's chant onto our wished place."_

Mr Shibuya beckoned Mai to him and she stepped away from Ayako as silently as she could, but a plank gave under her foot, creaking harshly. She gave him the thermometer without a word.

"Two degrees," he whispered in wonder. "Lin—" Remembering that his assistant wasn't present, he clucked his tongue. He plucked a nearby camcorder from its tripod and passed it to Mai, telling her to point it towards Ayako.

"It's here," Masako said beside Mai, clutching the student's arm.

Mai wasn't sure if she was supposed to see or not, but . . . she couldn't see anything. Though Mai wasn't sure if it was working, Ayako proceeded with her chants, swishing her _haraigushi_ back and forth without so much as a pause.

" _Our plane is a vast, violent tundra."_

"Do you remember what caused Lin's attack yesterday?" Mr Shibuya asked Mai.

She pointed her gaze to the short pillar he was holding. "That."

" _Gods from all places, gather here."_

Ayako got up from her knees and started for the stairs. She climbed the steps one at a time, simultaneously with every word she said.

" _Rin."_

The air around them grew thicker.

" _Pyou."_

Masako gasped, then turned to Mr Shibuya. "Please let go of that."

"Later."

" _Tou."_

Softly at first . . . then violently. Knocking sounds came from everywhere—the walls, the ceiling, even the floor.

" _Sha."_

"Mr Shibuya, please—"

"Later," he repeated firmly.

" _Kai."_

Five steps up the stairs, Ayako visibly faltered. Mai put a foot forward and started for Ayako, but John Brown stopped her.

"It'd be more dangerous if you interrupted her now."

"But—"

" _Jin."_

Masako clutched her arm harder.

"It's right there behind her," the medium gasped in horror.

" _Retsu."_

Mai's eyes hovered worriedly over Ayako—but there at the corner of her vision. There was a pair of bare, severely wounded feet at the second floor landing. She tried to lift her gaze up but stopped herself. She couldn't. She didn't want to see it.

" _Zai."_

"Ayako," Masako called, but her voice was too soft. "Ayako!" she repeated. "Behind you!"

"No, in front of you!" Mai shouted.

" _Zen!"_

 _T-H-W-A-C-K!_

There was a sharp sound of wood cracking—then an angry, unintelligible bellow of a man.

"Ayako get out of there right now!" Mai shrieked, ignoring the others as they tried to stop her from running towards Ayako.

Black entered her peripherals as Mr Shibuya overtook her, running faster and climbing two steps at a time. He got to Ayako first and found her hunching over her leg.

"What's wrong?" he asked, his careful deadpan voice betraying worry.

"Arg. Ugh. My foot's stuck," said Ayako, more irritated than concerned.

Mai shoved through Mr Shibuya and kneeled next to Ayako. Her foot was inside a large gaping hole on the stair tread, large enough that Ayako shouldn't have trouble retracting her foot. Mai tried pulling it out, but no matter how many times she tried getting it out, it was definitely stuck there.

"I don't understand . . . Why can't your foot get out?!"

"Something's holding me down!"

Mr Shibuya stood up beside them, and Mai only noticed now that he was still carrying that damn fallen baluster with him.

"Get out of the way!" he shouted, though it was not directed to Mai and Ayako.

"What the hell are you thinking, man?!"

"P-please Kazuya, think about this carefully!"

"Mr Shibuya! I don't think it's wise to anger it further—"

Mai felt the air shift behind her. She had just enough time to look behind her and see Mr Shibuya hoist the baluster up behind his head and—swung.

What was left of the balusters fell to the ground like hail from the sky.

-:-:-:-:-

* * *

 _A/N: Um. Well, at least it didn't take me eleven months this time, right? Ahaha... I'm so sorry. Tbh I already finished this chapter's outline even before I posted chapter 3—and I was really excited at first too bc would'ja look at that badass cliffhanger—but it took me forever to find the motivation to sit down and write. That, and whoop-dee-doo, the new semester's here and college professors are as unforgiving as ever._

 _On another note, have you guys read the last chapter of Akumu yet? TTnTT I'm still in denial huhuhu noooo there's still gonna be more right?2?_

 _—Super mega special thanks to archangelBBQ for editing and listening to my endless rambling haha! I would have stopped writing sooo long ago if not for you ✮ I baked a million brownies the other day and I bought this cool notebook that I really want to give you, and oh if only it were possible to ship them to you right this second (but damn it I'm broke and shipping costs a shitton) (also, the brownies would rot)_

 _Okay I know this is so long already, but bear with me for just a bit more. I made a sideblog for Phantasmagoria – phantablah .tumblr .com. I'm going to post some of my notes there, reblogs of pictures that may or may not be related to my endgame (shh), and even maybe hints for the coming chapters and stuff. Please check it out! :)_


	5. Quietus

****PHANTASMAGORIA****

 _5: Quietus_

.

Mai's hands are red, but she can't understand why.

A man is in front of her, wearing overalls and a yellow hard hat. He takes his hat off and hurls it across the room, then he . . . he's saying something. Screaming now. Pointing at a jagged, almost-dismantled wall behind him. In his left hand is a short metal bar—a glowing metal ruler. Incandescent, she can see the air around it smolder, contorting with the heat it emanated.

 _"P-please don't Engineer Nishigori! I-I'm sorry! I regret it! I d-didn't mean to mess up the wall—!"_

Then—ah, he kicks her in the stomach, but Mai doesn't feel any pain. However as she falls to the ground, she feels her palms burning when she clutches her middle, bright red blood from her palms smudging her neon vest. She doesn't—wouldn't—let herself cry out.

From the hardwood planks, she lifts her gaze with the intention to glare at the man, overcome with an intense need to punch and kick him and _hurt_ him again and again and again.

But when she looked up, she saw a severely tainted ceiling instead, with pinhole lights staring back at her. At the edge of her peripherals, orange rays of light seeped through a small window to her left. Her head—damn, the back of her head was throbbing like crazy, lightning bolts shooting down over and over. She tried lifting a hand to cradle her temples—but found that she couldn't. Her hands, her feet, even her head. She couldn't move her body at all. At her sides, she could still feel a dull sting to her hands, but she couldn't do anything to appease the pain.

It was strange, she thought as she stared at the ceiling. On one hand, she wanted to scream bloody murder, punch a wall or two, and jump out a window. Then again, there was a strange tranquility in the air, the feeling of wanting to sleep in on a Sunday morning. Her chest ached at the contradiction.

"Breathe," someone whispered, his voice a faint echo almost lost in the wind. Mai couldn't put a finger on it . . . but she recognized that voice somewhere. "You're not doing it right. You have to _breathe_."

Blinking groggily, she turned towards the voice, barely moving her head at all. Covered by the shadows from an adjacent wall, the voice's owner—a young man, probably Mai's age—was sitting on a chair in the corner. His nose was buried in a green, hardbound book.

"Breathe," he reminded her.

Still in a stupor, she sucked in a huge breath—and realized she thirsted for it. Twice more, she breathed in and barely breathed out, greedy for more air to fill her lungs, but that ended up leaving her in a fit of coughs. Clutching at her chest, nearly ripping the fabric of her school uniform, she heaved and heaved, on the verge of spewing her breakfast _and_ lunch.

"You have to breathe," he said again.

"That—I already know that," Mai spat in between coughs. "But I— _can't_. So do you—got any other _useful_ —advice, buddy?"

Speaking to air now, Mai didn't hear any response. Too exhausted to even glimpse one last time at the person she was speaking to, she closed her eyes for just a bit—just . . . a bit.

But why was it that she was so exhausted? Racking her brain for her strangely absent memories of the day, she had no choice but to worry her lip as she recounted her activities. She was sure they did practically nothing at school this morning, only a series of lectures as usual. She didn't have P.E. today either, so she couldn't have had expended so much energy that she couldn't keep herself awake anymore. Perhaps . . . the hospital? But they had put a halt to her rehabilitation for now, so that couldn't be it. Auntie Matsuzaki did say it wasn't proving effective anymore.

She opened her eyes after one moment—still the same tinted ceiling above her, but darker somehow. Glancing to the left, she found that the soft orange glow from outside was gone and instead an ominous gloom remained.

"Ms Taniyama, are you awake?"

Seated on the foot of her bed was, unexpectedly, Masako Hara. With her hands neatly folded on her lap, she stared at Mai with worry lacing her gray eyes.

"There—there was a man here," Mai stuttered, panic bubbling in her chest only now. The words she couldn't say earlier spilled out as she struggled to get them all out in a hurry. "His name—Nishigori, an engineer. H-he kicked me . . . And my hands! With the ruler—"

Masako reached forward and clasped both of Mai's hands in hers. "Slow down," Masako said calmly, never breaking eye contact with Mai. "We aren't in a hurry. No one's rushing you. You can start from the beginning."

Exhaling, Mai nodded and closed her eyes as she recalled what she saw. "This man—I'm not sure if he's . . . real," she said slowly, searching Masako's features for a hint of incredulity or disbelief.

The medium betrayed nothing. She kept a straight face, wordlessly urging Mai to continue.

"He's a large, burly man. The type that could've been a professional fighter. He had a hardhat on—wore neat overalls. A glowing metal ruler in his hand. He . . . burnt both of the my palms with it. I wanted to—"

Mai stopped mid-sentence and broke away from Masako's steady gaze. She couldn't confess what happened next—how the swell of emotions nearly drove her to actually punching a full-grown man. No matter how illogical thst sounded. And then, a rush of heat flowed to her cheeks as she realized what she had done—how she had revealed herself to a near-stranger. From behind her fringe, Mai peeked at Masako and gauged her expression. The medium seemed to be composed, more so than Mai at least. With her head tilted to one side, the medium looked as if she was deep in contemplation.

Brimming with nervousness, Mai shifted her stare once more, unable to focus on one thing. A medicine cabinet, a desk pushed to one side, an old wooden chair at the corner of the room.

The guy.

There had been another guy here. A young man. Mai had talked to him. Was he real? Was he not?

"Ms Hara," Mai started.

"Please call me Masako," she replied.

Startled by such unexpected initiative, it took a few seconds before Mai replied, "Then please call me by my first name as well." She bowed slightly. "Masako, did anyone else come here before you?"

"I remember only Ms Matsuzaki checking up on you a couple of times, but other than us, no one else came by."

"But—" _I'm almost sure someone **real** came by, _Mai wanted to continue, but the door slid open, slammed to the side, interrupting her.

Although with a slight limp to her steps, Ayako still managed to waltz into the room—without a care to the grim mood of its occupants. She headed straight to Mai and greeted her. "Good morning, _sunshine_ ," the doctor's high-pitched voice sang, tone brimming with false sweetness. "How does it feel to sleep on the job yet still getting paid for it?"

Not even bothering to smother her groan, Mai cradled her temples as it throbbed relentlessly.

"Masako, Deputy came to," Ayako said. "He wants you to look at the footage from earlier."

"All right," Masako replied, rising from her perch. She glanced worriedly at Mai one last time before heading out without another word.

Lying back down on the bed, she placed an arm over her eyes and sighed. "What time is it?" she asked Ayako.

"Just past six," Ayako answered, dragging a chair from the corner and placed it next to Mai's bed. There were two other beds here, Mai noticed. This must be the infirmary.

"How long have I . . ?"

"About three hours. I would've wanted to move you to the hospital, but . . . We had to take care of some things first." Huffing as she sat down, Ayako's demeanor shifted. "How do you feel? Is it your head or your lungs?"

"I'm fine," Mai assured, a dull ache at the back of her head reminder her that she _wasn't_. "What happened? I . . . don't exactly remember how I got here."

At that, Ayako's lips pursed into a grim line, the look in her eyes hardening. "What's the last thing you remember?" the doctor asked as she lifted a hand to Mai's forehead, feeling for her temperature, then moved on to check the dilation of her pupils. "The clearest memory you can recall."

"Um." Mai fidgeted. She didn't want to tell Ayako what she had told Masako. "Just a blur of today's classes. I remember meeting Yasuhara-senpai for the first time again. Setting up cameras and microphones with Boss . . . And oh yeah! We were walking around the school and I was playing with your stick—"

"Mai. You met Yasuhara _yesterday_."

She blinked. "Huh. Okay, but we _did_ walk around the school, right?" She scratched her head.

"Yes," Ayako said, hand on her chin as she considered Mai's predicament. "I performed an exorcism today, remember?"

And only then did she notice that Ayako was in her priestess robes. "Did I . . . Why did I faint?"

"We _all_ did, Mai," Ayako huffed. "I was so close to finishing my ritual, but that damn _brat_ ruined everything. The stairs! My _foot_!" She pointed a carefully-manicured finger at the bloodied bandages wrapped around said foot. "When he knocked down the stair handrails—everybody blacked out!"

"Seriously?" Mai gawked at Ayako, mouth hanging open in amazement. Or in terror, she couldn't decide yet.

"Yes. Seriously. Good thing Yasuhara came to check up on us right then. He woke everyone up a few minutes after we lost consciousness, but you and Mr Shibuya were the only ones who wouldn't."

"I understand how _I_ took longer to wake up, but why him too?"

"Probably because—" Ayako rolled her eyes "—one of the balusters hit the ghost's head and he pissed 'em off?"

"It would've went through, Ayako."

Ayako raised both hands in surrender. "Well how should I know? In the first place, we don't even know why we all got knocked out."

A scene abruptly flashed in Mai's mind: a furious man in a hardhat pointing furiously at a jagged wall. Mai kept her mouth shut about that.

Mai snickered, although in her groggy state her lips twisted into a grimace instead. "Great work today, Ayako. You—your foot—the best so far."

"Don't even start," Ayako warned, her tone strict but her reddening cheeks betraying her. "Just rest for now. Save your smug little comments for later when you can _actually_ make them."

Ayako rolled her eyes, trying her best to stare Mai down with a slanted gaze. But when Mai started to get up she broke off the glare and helped the younger up from the creaking cot.

"Well anyway, Mr Shibuya woke up around twenty minutes before you did, then went straight to reviewing the monitors," Ayako said. Then snickered as she continued, "Never have I seen such enthusiasm on his glum face before."

"Did he catch the ghost?"

"Yeah," Ayako said. Mai was about to rejoice, finally free from manual labor! But then Ayako added, "On camera, that is."

Ayako dodged the dusty pillow Mai threw at her.

Before long, they headed to the base, their trip peculiarly quiet without their usual bickering. Walking through school hallways during the night was forbidding as it was. Now was not the time to think about the ghost that haunted this place.

"Go back about fifteen seconds, Kazuya," John said as she and Ayako entered the room. His pronunciation was a bit off, especially when he enunciated Mr Shibuya's first name. "It shows up again above one of the balusters right as you hit them."

Mai moved forward to get a better look at the monitor, settling behind John and Takigawa without them noticing. Mr Shibuya hits a few keys on his laptop to rewind the clip, then presses the space button to play it. The scene shown was as Ayako had described; the priestess finishing her incantations, her foot going through the boards, Mai and Mr Shibuya rushing up behind her, him knocking the balusters down, and... everyone dropping to the ground at the same exact second.

"Look at that." Takigawa whistled, pointing to the corner of the screen. " _That_ wasn't there in the footage a second ago."

Mai's eyes followed to where Takigawa's finger pointed. A singular glowing orb floated around the room, hovering over the stairs. As if it was pacing, it went back and forth to each fallen baluster. But . . . it disappeared?

It—the orb—is suddenly replaced by a man, the same burly man with a hardhat on. Muttering under his breath, he picks up the balusters one by one.

Mai and Masako exchanged glances.

"Mai, it's what you—" Masako started, but Mai hastily interrupted.

Mai leaned forward over Mr Shibuya's shoulder to point at the screen. "Oh my gosh! What a wonderful find, Boss!" she exclaimed, startling Takigawa. "An _actual_ orb floating around! This is the 'material' you're looking for, right? Aha . . . ha ha . . ." Mai laughed, skittish, a corner of her lips twitching. She tried to control her breathing as she tapped the screen with a finger, nail scraping the surface.

Mr Shibuya slapped her hand aside. "I'm sure you aren't thrilled at the thought of piling up more debt, or would you rather pay for this monitor in advance? It's much cheaper than the camera you broke," he scoffed, then turned to Masako. "Please continue what you were about to say, Ms Hara."

Taking a quick glance towards Mai's direction—to which Mai widened her eyes and covertly shook her head—Masako answered, "In the footage I see the same man from this afternoon. Hardhat, overalls, tool belt . . . metal ruler in one hand. I presume he's the contractor who was in charge of this building's construction. His name . . ." Masako glanced at Mai. "His name starts with an N."

From behind Mai, someone asked, "On what grounds do you think so? Why are you so sure he's a contractor?" It was Yasuhara, school bag tucked under one arm, both hands in his pockets. Mai raised an eyebrow in question. He only smiled in response.

Ayako, who was beside him, elbowed his side. "You shut up. This isn't one of your detective games." Mai wondered how she knew about what video games he played.

Masako hesitated. "He had an aura of authority about him. Before Ms Matsuzaki's failed exorcism this afternoon—"

"Okay, first of all it failed because of that stunt Deputy pulled—"

"I saw him below the stairs," Masako continued regardless of Ayako's interruption, her tone biting. "He was calculating measurements and writing them down on a sheet of blueprints."

Mr Shibuya patted his pockets, finally finding his mechanical pencil after a few tries. He grabbed a random notepad from one of the boxes and scribbled in a few hasty notes.

"What else do you remember?" he asked. "I'll be visiting the library tomorrow to research this establishment's history."

"Oh I can help you with that!" Yasuhara chirped, procuring a notebook of his own from his bag. "I know the library like the back of my hand."

Ayako elbowed Yasuhara harder, and he grunted at the force. "Shouldn't you be studying for college entrance exams or whatever."

"I'm still a second year!" Yasuhara placed a hand over his chest as if he was affronted. "I'll think about college next year, thank you very much."

"This isn't the place for amateurs, boy," Takigawa said. "We're all professionals here. You'll only get in the way."

"Then why's Taniyama here?"

They all turned to her.

"Actually, that's a good point, Senpai," Mai said. "That's a very good point."

Mr Shibuya sighed in resignation. "Fine. Come with me tomorrow, 8AM sharp."

"Got it."

"Everyone should retire now as well," Mr Shibuya added. "After seeing first-hand how powerful this spirit actually is, it wouldn't be wise to continue our investigation further into the night."

"I agree, Kazuya," John said. "Will it be my turn tomorrow? What time should I come by?"

"Around 11AM. I need enough time to set up the equipment before your exorcism."

"That's a wrap then," Takigawa said, then turned to Ayako, smirking. "Thank you very much for treating us to yet another amusing show, _o holy priestess_."

"Are you asking to be killed."

"Not at all."

Ayako sneered, turning her nose up at Takigawa's unapologetic grin. "Mai, let's go." Head held high, Ayako started for the exit, her clacking heels echoing as she crossed the long hallway. Mai hesitated at the base's doorway, Mr Shibuya's back turned to her as he packed his belongings.

"What time should I be here tomorrow, Mr Shibuya?" she asked him.

"Be here at 8AM as well," he instructed as he slung his bag over a shoulder. "Before I head for the library, I need you here to organize the equipment."

"Okay."

Mr Shibuya turned his back on them, going back to reviewing the footage. He pulled up different files on his laptop rapidly, switching windows after windows with practiced ease. He eventually came back to the video of Ayako's exorcism attempt, but he rewinds to before his sudden display of exhibition—which he still hadn't explained, now that Mai thought about it. He never explained why he knocked all those balusters down.

 _'Behind you!'_

 _'No—in front of you!'_

In one sharp movement, Mr Shibuya tapped a button on his keyboard and rewinded the footage.

 _'Behind you!'_

 _'No—in front of you!'_ Another tap _. 'No—in front of you!'_ And one more. _'In front of you!'_

Mai cringed at her own voice repeating in the video, shrilly in spite of being muffled by the device's speakers. She could feel an interrogation coming, and before Mr Shibuya could even open his mouth and set his icy blue eyes on her, she bolted from the room and let her goodbyes echo across the walls. "See you all tomorrow!" she called as she walked briskly out the door.

Traversing hallway after hallway, it was only Ayako's own footsteps that guided Mai and prevented her from getting lost in the maze. The click-clacking of the doctor's heels proved effective as bread crumbs to lead her to the exit. As she crossed the foyer, she averted her gaze from the staircase and stepped over various pieces of wood strewn across the floor. From the damage left, Mai wondered how it was possible for scrawny Mr Shibuya to have done such a number on the installation. The wood that composed the staircase was old, true, but it must have been nailed down sturdy at least. How he could have dismantled nearly half the balusters in one fell swoop, Mai hadn't the slightest clue.

"Hey, wait up!" shouted Yasuhara to catch her attention just as she was crossing the threshold. Mai glanced behind her and saw him jogging to catch up with her, his glasses askew. "How are you? You were unconscious more than twice the time the others were."

"I'm fine," Mai reassured, unable to keep the smile tugging at her lips. "Used to it, you know?"

"Ah." Yasuhara scratched the back of his head and repositioned his glasses. "Aren't you dizzy? Should I walk you home—I mean, to the hospital? You might faint again . . ."

"It's okay, I'm riding with Ayako," Mai said, but her tone suggested the farthest from certainty. She scrunched her nose at the thought of sharing a vehicle with Ayako, with the doctor driving to boot. "Let's hope I don't faint at the many sharp swerves she's sure to make."

Yasuhara chuckled. "Oh, man. Good luck with that—I actually had the misjudgment of accepting a ride from her last year. Let's just say it one the the worse decisions I've ever made."

"Right?" Mai agreed, shivering involuntarily. "Yeah, why don't I take your offer to walk me right now? My self-preservation instincts are kicking in."

"How about it?" Yasuhara flashed a 100-watt smile. "My house is in the direction of the hospital anyway."

Mai returned the smile. "Sure. Let me just tell Ayako."

On the surface, Mai was calm and collected, an easy smile pasted on her features. Yet internally, she was semi in a daze and semi freaking out. Her conversation with her upperclassman flowed smoothly, as if they'd been talking like this for years-instead of the one-sided awkwardness Mai had with him all through out middle school. Mai hadn't decided if she still harbored a crush on him or if it had already faded away.

"Ayako, Yasuhara-senpai's walking me home," Mai told, albeit distractedly. Between being overwhelmed by today's ghost hunting fiasco and being overwhelmed by swirling emotions, Mai informed Ayako about this and walked away with the woman's response coming in one ear and out the other.

"So, what got you into working at SPR anyway?" Yasuhara asked as they fell into step, heading towards the hospital several blocks away.

Mai grimaced. "I got roped into it."

Crossing his arms, the dim streetlights did nothing to hide the surprise crossing his features. "Blackmail?"

"Not exactly," Mai laughed, though it was more of a pitiful huff. "I broke a camera. And a person."

"A person?" Amusement overlapped his worrying. "Ah, is this the famed Mr Lin? John mentioned him a while ago."

"Yeah, I—I kind of broke his shoulder."

"Yikes. How is he now?"

Mai shrugged. "He's in a more stable condition now. His shoulder's in a sling and he's recovering, but his hands are still injured so he can't go back to work."

"Broke those too?" Yasuhara asked, brows raised.

"I'm not responsible for his hands this time! They just magically got burnt for some reason when he fell from the staircase, but I don't know how because there was no fire anywhere?" Mai's tone rose up as she spoke.

Yasuhara hummed in contemplation. "Gotta take note of that when I go to the library tomorrow."

Now it was Mai's turn to cross her arms. "Why did you volunteer anyway, Senpai? Aren't you busy enough with school work and the student council?"

"Offering help to SPR is actually my ticket to a week's worth vacation away from the student council. I already asked the principal permission for a break," Yasuhara explained. Mai gave him a dubious stare and only chuckled at that. "What?"

"Ah, now I see. It wasn't good will on your part that you lent a hand to Mr Shibuya," Mai said, trying and failing to project a stern expression.

"Hey, I intend to give my best at researching tomorrow," he laughed. "Besides, I'm genuinely curious about the abandoned school building anyway. Is there really a ghost there?"

Mai's features betrayed nothing, but she felt her hands shaking slightly so she intertwined them behind her back to keep Yasuhara from seeing them. "Probably? I mean, you heard what Masako said. And there's that orb floating around in the video."

"That's true," he replied, slowing down his stride as they approached the hospital's driveway. How were they here already? Their walk went entirely too fast, Mai didn't even notice time flying by. "So, I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah. Good luck at the library tomorrow," Mai said, waving her hand. "I noticed Mr Shibuya's organizational habits — or the lack of them anyway. I hope he doesn't grate too much on your nerves."

"You'll be the first to know if I ever decide to hit him with a baluster," he joked, waving a hand in goodbye as well.

-:-:-:-:-

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry for the wait! I got caught up with school and rl and i just_ _— got a bit suffocated. And,, ahh,,, chapter four got a lukewarm response ;-; I got kinda discouraged about that for a while... But no matter! The next chapter's going to be the last for this arc and I'm suuuuper excited to introduce a new case and new characters in chapter seven!  
_

 _Please also check out my new ongoing story btw! The title is 'take a moment, remind yourself'. Yes yes, before you even tell me... I **know**. I should be responsible and finish my current stories first but... It's a piano au? And Mai's a figure skater there?2 Can you blame my muse for being inspired by such a wonderful concept ;;; (i thank with all my heart the existence of yoi and no we are not worthy of such a pure series we can only thank the goddess Kubo for having mercy on our souls)_

 _P.S. All the chapter titles of phantasmagoria are from the OSTs of the Zero Escape series ^^_


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